From p.elinas at acfr.usyd.edu.au Sun Feb 1 15:59:26 2009 From: p.elinas at acfr.usyd.edu.au (Pantelis) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:59:26 +1100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD position in planning and scheduling at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics Message-ID: <1233532766.6060.27.camel@elinas-laptop> The Australian Centre for Field Robotics, University of Sydney, Australia PhD Studentship in planning and scheduling for mining applications. (Application deadline: 30April 2009) Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship to investigate new algorithms for planning and/or scheduling under uncertainty with continuous actions for surface mining operations, to commence in July 2009, or as soon as possible thereafter. The University of Sydney is Australia?s premier University with an outstanding reputation for academic and research excellence. The Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR,http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/) at the University of Sydney is a world-renown research group in field robotics and automation and consists of over 150 research staff and students. The ACFR has established a major new Centre for Mine Automation (http://www.usyd.edu.au/CMA/) to develop and implement the vision of a fully autonomous, remotely operated mine. Applicants should have a first class honours degree in any related discipline (e.g., engineering, computer science) or extensive appropriate professional experience. Each scholarship is valued a $25,872 p.a. (tax exempt). The scholarship will be supplemented by access to overseas travel grants and other allowances. To submit an application: Please include a curriculum vitae, an academic transcript and the names and contact details of two referees. A statement of the broad area of your research interest should also be included. For any enquiries or further information, send email to: Dr Pantelis Elinas p.elinas at acfr.usyd.edu.au From perfo at cs.ubc.ca Sun Feb 1 02:31:35 2009 From: perfo at cs.ubc.ca (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Per-Erik_Forss=E9n?=) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:31:35 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?Post-doctoral_position_in_Com?= =?iso-8859-1?q?puter/Robot_Vision=2C_Link=F6ping_University=2C_Sweden?= Message-ID: <5C9B3F00-A42C-49CC-A65B-B6B507D6E203@cs.ubc.ca> Post-doctoral position in Computer/Robot Vision Link?ping University, Sweden STARTING DATE : Immediately DURATION : 12 months (optional prolongation to 24 months) SALARY (gross income) : 30.000 SEK (about 3000 Euros) /month. Taxation about 32%, health care included, low housing costs in Link?ping SCIENTIFIC CONTEXT : This post-doctoral position is offered in context of the DIPLECS (Dynamic Interactive Perception-action LEarning in Cognitive Systems) project, http://www.diplecs.eu. The DIPLECS project is an FP7 EU project focusing on basic research in the area of cognitive system design and computer vision. A summary of the first results is available at http://www.cvl.isy.liu.se/Information/Job/summary.pdf . The particular focus for this position is on obstacle avoidance using structure-from-motion on a small robotic vehicle (an E-MAXX 3905 with a high-end laptop, a fire-wire camera, and an XSens IMU). The researcher is expected to be both practical and scientifically minded, and willing to publish results at conferences and in journals. Creative contributions and modifications to the problem formulation are highly encouraged. ENVIRONMENT : The Computer Vision Laboratory (CVL) has a long history in the area of Signal Processing for Computer Vision, Cognitive Vision, and Robotics. For instance, both the double-angle representation of orientation and the structure tensor originate here. The CVL team has a broad range of competences, e.g. in feature extraction, object recognition, motion estimation, stereo, tracking, robot control, and machine learning. CVL has coordinated the recently successfully completed EU FP6 project COSPAL, http://www.cospal.org, and currently coordinates the EU FP7 project DIPLECS. The relatively small team of researchers at CVL has a tradition of tight cooperation, with a particularly open climate for discussions, mutual support, and exchange of code and expertise. REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS : Experience with one or more of: projective geometry, machine learning, and control theory. Experience of programming (C++ and Matlab). ACADEMIC BACKGROUND: 5 years higher education (university's degree or engineering equivalence). A Ph.D. in the field of computer vision, preferably image sequence processing or analysis. CONTACTS FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION : Applicants should send a CV including a list of publications, a statement of research interests, and names and contact information of 2 referees electronically to Michael Felsberg: mfe at isy.liu.se, http://www.cvl.isy.liu.se/~mfe/, until February 13, 2009. Professor Michael Felsberg Tel: +46 13 282460 Computer Vision Laboratory Fax: +46 13 138526 Link?ping University email: mfe at isy.liu.se SE-581 83 Link?ping, Sweden http://www.cvl.isy.liu.se/~mfe/ -- Per-Erik Forss?n | Postdoctoral Fellow Dept of Computer Science | http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~perfo/ Suite 201 | mailto:perfo at cs.ubc.ca 2366 Main Mall | lab phone: +1 (604) 827 3987 Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 | skype: per-erik_forssen Canada From nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de Mon Feb 2 00:44:21 2009 From: nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de (Nils Siebel) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:44:21 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: HYCAS 2009 @ IJCAI-09: Hybrid Control of Autonomous Systems Message-ID: <20090202084421.741B413D06C@sprotte.ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de> [Apologies if you receive this more than once!] ************************************************************************ HYCAS 2009 INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON HYBRID CONTROL OF AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS Integrating Learning, Deliberation and Reactive Control Held in conjunction with IJCAI-09 in Pasadena, CA, on July 13 2009 http://www.hycas.org/ ************************************************************************ CALL FOR PAPERS OBJECTIVES High-level control for Autonomous Systems (e.g. robots) is concerned with selecting the next action the system should perform. Known paradigms for this action selection problem are learning, deliberation, reactive control schemes or combinations of these, i.e. hybrid approaches. These paradigms have been known for over two decades, and in today's applications often combinations of learning, deliberation, and reactive control are used. Usually these combinations are used in an ad-hoc or even unconscious fashion. Although there is a number of proposed architectures and huge body of literature, the issue of combining learning, reactive and deliberative control never has been intensively investigated. With this workshop we wish to bring together researchers from different areas who concentrate on combinations of learning, planning, and/or reactive schemes for decision making and the control of autonomous systems. The workshop is open to all members of the AI and Robotics community. We would specifically like to encourage students to participate. RELEVANT TOPICS The questions to be addressed in this workshop are: * How can learning, deliberation and/or reactive control be combined such that the methods can benefit from each other -- e.g. by using a common representation? * What are the challenging domains demanding for hybrid control? * What are its successful applications? Papers are invited on all aspects of hybrid methods for the control of autonomous systems, including, but not limited to: * Decision Making * Modelling of Domains, Capabilities/Affordances and Robot Behaviours * Agent Learning * Cognitive Robotics * Behaviour-based Robotics and Emergent Control * Developmental and Epigenetic Robotics * Architectures and Architectural Patterns IMPORTANT DATES * March 6 2009: Paper Submission * April 17 2009: Notification of paper acceptance * May 8 2009: Camera ready paper submission * May 15 2009: Early registration deadline * July 13 2009: Workshop Authors of selected articles will be invited to submit an extended version of their workshop paper to a special issue of an international journal on robotics and automation. WORKSHOP CHAIRS Nils T Siebel Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany Gerald Steinbauer Graz University of Technology, Austria Alexander Ferrein RWTH Aachen University, Germany Josef Pauli University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Alexander Ferrein Alfredo Gabaldon Fredrik Heintz Christian Igel Yohannes Kassahun Tim Kovacs Gerhard K Kraetzschmar Gerhard Lakemeyer Ales Leonardis Pedro U Lima Daniele Nardi Josef Pauli Jan Peters Daniel Polani Martin Riedmiller Juergen Schmidhuber Nils T Siebel Gerald Steinbauer Ron Sun Marc Toussaint Hans Utz Markus Vincze ************************************************************************ More information on the workshop website: http://www.hycas.org/ ************************************************************************ From emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 18:49:39 2009 From: emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com (icra 2009) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:49:39 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ICRA09] CfP: Workshop on "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" - Deadline extension Message-ID: ----------------------------------------------------------- IEEE ICRA'09 WORKSHOP Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics ----------------------------------------------------------- Dear Colleagues, due to several requests, the deadline for the abstract submission to the workshop on "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" has been extended to February 7 (Saturday) 2009, midnight pacific time. =============================== The full-day workshop "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 17, 2009 (Sunday) ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------------------------------------------------- http://www.robocasa.net/workshop/2009icra ----------------------------------------------------------- GOAL AND SCOPE ----------------------------------------------------------- This full day workshop will address the current challenges and the future perspectives of emotional humanoid robotics, from perception to expression, including modeling and understanding. It will also address the creation of mental and interaction models, and evaluation metrics for the interaction. This workshop will offer a unique opportunity of interaction among leading international researchers from a wide range of disciplines, and will provide to those interested in the field of emotional robotics the possibility to spend a full-immersion day with experts and colleagues, to learn and to discuss personally and interactively. ----------------------------------------------------------- List of topics ----------------------------------------------------------- This workshop will cover both the basis of robotic technology (such as mechanical engineering, control engineering, materials engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, information engineering, and ergonomics) and many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as sociology, law, and ethics. In particular: * Human emotions & emotional humanoid robots; * Understanding the human motor control and human perception, and their relationship with emotions; * Novel paradigms of collaboration and interaction between robots and humans * Trends in neuroscience and neuroscientific models relevant to the design of new emotional robotic systems * Robotic platforms usable for validating and investigating neuroscientific models of emotions; * Biologically-inspired sensory-motor co-ordination The program will be selected to span both academic and industrial research. ----------------------------------------------------------- *NEW* Important Dates -> Extended deadlines ----------------------------------------------------------- February 7, 2009 (Sat): submission of two-page abstracts February 16, 2009 (Mon): Notification of acceptance/rejection March 1, 2009 (Mon): submission of final contributions --------------------------------------------------------- Abstract submission --------------------------------------------------------- Prospective authors should submit their contributions electronically in PDF format to the address emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com by February 7, 2009. The abstract submission should include: * Title * List of authors and affiliations * Abstract of 500-800 words * References to your own related work relevant web links * Figure captions * Figures should be submitted as attachment to the email A maximum of 2 figures is accepted. The figures (in jpeg, gif, or png formats) should be an attachment to the email. The abstracts of accepted contributions will be published on the workshop web site. A journal special issue is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. --------------------------------------------------------- Organizers --------------------------------------------------------- * Atsuo TAKANISHI Department of Mechanical Engineering Waseda University * Massimiliano ZECCA, Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care Waseda University ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Massimiliano ZECCA, Ph.D. Research Associate ASMeW - http://www.waseda.jp/scoe/ Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care Waseda University Takanishi Lab - http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/ RoboCasa - http://www.robocasa.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From Alex.Zelinsky at csiro.au Sun Feb 1 22:31:41 2009 From: Alex.Zelinsky at csiro.au (Alex.Zelinsky at csiro.au) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:31:41 +1100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ****Deadline extended until 20 February 2009****. Call for Applications: IEEE/IFR Invention & Entrepreneurship Award Message-ID: <2662DD637C5B50418BAD33D7A200034F1A2285E5@EXNSW-MBX01.nexus.csiro.au> ************Deadline extended for applications until Friday 20 February 2009 ************ *******************Call for Applications********************** IEEE/International Federation of Robotics Invention & Entrepreneurship Award for Outstanding Achievements in Commercializing Innovative Robot and Automation Technology in conjunction with IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation May 12, 2009 - 1:00pm-5:00pm Kobe International Conference Center, Japan co-located with IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation - May 12-16, 2009 Kobe International Conference Center, Japan Sponsoring Organizations: International Federation of Robotics (http://www.ifr.org) IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (http://www.ieee-ras.org) Deadline for applications: February 1, 2009 http://www.ieee-ras.org/industrial Announcement: The purpose of this award is to highlight and honor the achievements of the inventors with value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products. This is a key element to the continuing success of robotics and automation today. Active infusion of innovation and entrepreneurship into technological advancement is regarded critical at this juncture to strengthen a healthy balance between research and practice as well as a healthy growth of industrial and commercial sectors in robotics and automation. In a joint event the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and the International Federation of Robotics will therefore recognize and honor outstanding achievements of entrepreneurs in the commercialization of innovative robotic and automation technology. These achievements will be recognized in a specially organized IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation, which is being held in conjunction the IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation, the world's largest annual robotics conference. The selected finalists will have the opportunity to present their story of the genesis of a successful innovative product in robotics and automation from its very inception to the final state of commercialization in a series of plenary lectures. The ultimate winner will be chosen by an evaluation board, consisting of distinguished individuals from industry and academia. A prestigious plaque will be awarded to each finalist and a US$ 2,000 prize will be awarded to the winner. Applications should describe the original work that has been translated into a commercial success. The application must include statements regarding: * description of the innovation/product/application * stages of the product genesis * novelty/uniqueness of the product * market analysis, economic viability and pathway for commercialization * sustained competitive advantage * current and future impact on and relevance to industry Applications should not exceed a maximum length of 5 pages. Product descriptions and public relation material will not be accepted as an application. References and links to online material are permitted. Submission of Applications Please send as PDF document (< 6MB) no later than February 1, 2009 (any time zone) to klas at ieee.org Schedule February 1, 2009 Submission of applications February 28, 2009 Evaluation of applications and selection and notification of finalists May 12, 2009 Award Ceremony with plenary lectures of the finalists at the IEEE/IFR Joint Forum on Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Robotics and Automation Contact Klas Nilsson Dept. of Computer Science, Lund University, Box 118, 221 00, Lund, Sweden phone: +46-46-2224304 / fax: +46-46-131021 / skype: klas_nilsson http://www.cs.lth.se/~klas e-mail: klas at ieee.org Honorary Chair Sukhan Lee (Sungkyunkwan University) General Chairs Alex Zelinsky (CSIRO, IEEE RAS VP Industrial Activities)?ke Lindqvist (ABB, IFR President) Organizing Committee Program Chair: Alex Zelinsky (CSIRO) Awards Chair: Klas Nilsson (Lund Univ.) Finance Chair: Erwin Prassler (BRS Univ.) Local Arrangements: Shin'ichi Yuta (Tsukuba Univ) Awards Committee IEEE: Klas Nilsson (Lund Univ.) Shin'ichi Yuta (Tsukuba Uni) Alex Zelinsky (CSIRO) IFR: Rolf-Dieter Schraft (IPA) Tokuo Iikura (JARA) Stefan M?ller (KUKA, EUnited Robotics) From james.morrison at kaist.edu Mon Feb 2 00:00:15 2009 From: james.morrison at kaist.edu (James Morrison) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:00:15 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I am writing to invite you to participate in the 2009 IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering. Here are are few key pieces of information (with more below the signature line): IEEE CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING August 22-25, 2009, Bangalore, India Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society http://www.ieee-case.org Submission of regular papers: February 15, 2009 I look forward to seeing you in Bangalore! Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions! Best regards, Jim ============================================================================= James R. Morrison, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, KAIST, South Korea Co-chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation ============================================================================= E-mail: james.morrison at kaist.edu, TEL: +82-42-350-3127 xS3D Lab homepage: http://xs3d.kaist.edu IEEE Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation: http://xs3d.kaist.edu/TC-SMA ============================================================================= IEEE CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING August 22-25, 2009, Bangalore, India Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society http://www.ieee-case.org Submission of proposals for special sessions: February 1, 2009 Submission of regular papers: February 15, 2009 ..................................................................... The Fifth IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE 2009) will be held at Bangalore, India, from August 22 to 25, 2009. Papers are solicited in all areas related to both theoretical and application sides of automation. More specifically, this year's CASE will evolve around the following themes: - Foundations of Automation - Knowledge Sciences and Automation - Sensors and Sensor Networks - Manufacturing, Logistics and Supply Chain Automation - Automation in Life Sciences and Health Care - Automation in Meso, Micro and Nano-Scale (e.g., semiconductor manufacturing) We also solicit proposals for special sessions and for tutorials and workshops on frontier topics in automation. We welcome and encourage Industry participation in all the events. IEEE CASE is an offspring of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (http://www.ieee.org/t-ase). High quality CASE papers will be recommended for possible publication in this flagship automation journal. Some important dates: ? Submission of proposals for special sessions: February 1, 2009 ? Submission of regular papers: February 15, 2009 ? Submission of proposals for tutorials and workshops: March 1, 2009 Detailed information on the submission process for all the above items can be found at the conference website: http://www.ieee-case.org The venue of the conference is Hotel Grand Ashok, Bangalore. Bangalore itself is a leading hub of India's modern economy and a primary base for many global companies, especially in the IT sector. It is also the home for many of India's premier research institutions, including the Indian Institute of Science, and numerous research labs of the government and global companies. Bangalore is distinguished by its salubrious weather and by seamless blending of the old and the modern Indian cultures. It is directly served by many well known air carriers. The website also provides additional information on travel and accommodation arrangements for the conference attendees, as well as on various special events that will be an integral part of this conference. It is a pleasure to request you to be a part of this important event and we look forward to receiving your paper(s)/proposal(s). For any additional information, please contact one of the conference organizers: - Y. Narahari, Indian Institute of Science, General Chair, hari at csa.iisc.ernet.in - V. Kumar, University of Pennsylvania, General Co-Chair, kumar at seas.upenn.edu - Spyros Reveliotis, Georgia Inst. of Technology, Program Chair, spyros at isye.gatech.edu From Kanna.Rajan at mbari.org Mon Feb 2 07:56:29 2009 From: Kanna.Rajan at mbari.org (Kanna Rajan) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:56:29 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2009 Underwater Robotics/Planning & Execution Summer Internship, Monterey Bay California Message-ID: <7C975F66-3624-4148-8F34-CC3DD544DC86@mbari.org> [Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement] The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI http:// www.mbari.org) is a private non-profit oceanographic research institute which has engaged in inter-disciplinary research in the ocean sciences and technology for over 20 years. The institute does advanced work in Robotics, Genetics, Micro-Biology and Ocean Exploration and Observing with 3 ocean going ships, 2 Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV's) and 3 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV's) in addition to state-of-the-art science and technology facilities. MBARI's 2009 Internship applications are now open with details at: http://www.mbari.org/education/internship/09interns/09announce.htm The deadline for applications is Feb 11th. MBARI's Autonomous Systems group is engaged in research efforts to use advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to enable Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) to be more adaptive and self aware of their resource and goal commitments. Our onboard deliberative system T-REX (http://www.mbari.org/autonomy/TREX/ ) being used on AUV platform (http://www.mbari.org/auv/), is based on the sense-deliberate-act paradigm synthesizing new mission plans in response to environmental conditions. T-REX uses a state-of-the-art temporal constraint-based planner (EUROPA) developed originally at NASA and flown on a number of space missions including ground-based control of the ongoing Mars Exploration Rovers (MER). Potential internship opportunities include (but not limited to) working on: 1. PlanWorks debugging tool for EUROPA which allows us to leverage work done in visualization of constraint networks, token networks and timelines. The internship primarily be focused on developing PlanWorks to provide diagnostic information for T-REX. 2. Expanding the simulation capability currently available within T- REX, including monte-carlo simulation for model and and agent validation. The internship will focus on augmenting and adding new features for shore-side T-REX validation. 3. Extend the NDDL domain modeling language within the EUROPA planner to natively support arithmetic constraints and propagate them efficiently. Highly motivated graduate students with substantial + Java programming skills + Excellent C++ programming skills + AI Planning and a background in Constraint Satisfaction are encouraged to apply. Women and Minorities are particularly encouraged to apply. From yangl at HLT.UTDALLAS.EDU Mon Feb 2 15:37:32 2009 From: yangl at HLT.UTDALLAS.EDU (Yang Liu) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:37:32 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICMI-MLMI 2009 Call for Workshops -- Proposal due March 1, 2009 Message-ID: # Apologies for cross postings CALL FOR ICMI-MLMI 2009 WORKSHOPS http://icmi2009.acm.org Boston MA, USA Main conference: 2-4 November 2009 Workshops: 5-6 November 2009 ************ Proposal Deadline: 1 March 2009 ***************** Acceptance Notification: 22 March 2009 The ICMI and MLMI conferences will jointly take place in the Boston area during November 2-6, 2009. The main aim of ICMI-MLMI 2009 is to further scientific research within the broad field of multimodal interaction, methods and systems. The joint conference will focus on major trends and challenges in this area, and work to identify a roadmap for future research and commercial success. The main conference will be followed by a number of workshops, for which we invite proposals. The format, style, and content of accepted workshops is under the control of the workshop organizers. Workshops will take place on 5-6 November 2009, and may be of one or two days duration. Workshop organizers will be expected to manage the workshop content, specify the workshop format, be present to moderate the discussion and panels, invite experts in the domain, and maintain a website for the workshop. Proposals should specify clearly the workshop's title, motivation, impact, expected outcomes, potential invited speakers and the workshop URL. The proposal should also name the main workshop organizer, and co-organizers, and should provide brief bios of the organizers. Submit workshop proposals, as pdf, by email to workshops-icmi2009 at acm.org From yangl at HLT.UTDALLAS.EDU Mon Feb 2 15:46:10 2009 From: yangl at HLT.UTDALLAS.EDU (Yang Liu) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:46:10 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICMI-MLMI 2009 Call for Special Sessions - Proposals due March 1, 2009 Message-ID: # Apologies for cross postings CALL FOR ICMI-MLMI 2009 SPECIAL SESSIONS http://icmi2009.acm.org Boston MA, USA 2-6 November 2009 Special sessions in main conference: 2-4 November 2009 ********* Special Session Proposal Deadline: 1 March 2009 ******* Acceptance Notification: 22 March 2009 The ICMI and MLMI conferences will jointly take place in the Boston area during November 2-6, 2009. The main aim of ICMI-MLMI 2009 is to further scientific research within the broad field of multimodal interaction, methods and systems. The joint conference will focus on major trends and challenges in this area, and work to identify a roadmap for future research and commercial success. The main conference will include a number of sessions. Each special session should provide an overview of the state-of-the-art, present novel methodologies, and highlight important research directions in a field of special interest to ICMI participants. Topics of special sessions should be focused rather than defined broadly. Each special session should comprise of 4-5 invited papers. It is encouraged that the session begins with an overview paper on the topic being addressed and that the remaining papers follow up with technical contributions on the topic. The following information should be included in the proposal: * Title of the proposed special session * Names/affiliation of the organizers (including brief bio and contact info) * Session abstract (state significance of the topic and the rationale for the proposed session) * List of invited presenters (including a tentative title and a 300-words abstract for each paper) Proposals will be evaluated based on the timeliness of the topic and relevance to ICMI, the potential impact of the sessions, the quality of the proposed content, and the standing of the organizers. Please note that all papers in the proposed session should be reviewed to ensure that the contributions are of the highest quality. The organizer(s) of accepted special sessions will arrange the review process, except that the review of papers submitted by the organizers themselves will be handled by the special session and program co-chairs. Once all the papers belonging to a special session are reviewed, the final acceptance of the session will be based on submitting the whole package to the Special Sessions Chairs. Important Dates for Special Session Submission: 1 March 2009: Proposal for special sessions due. 22 March 2009: Decision for special session proposal due. 29 May 2009: Submission of special session papers to organizers. 15 July 2009: Acceptance notification. 1 August 2009: Submission of the whole package and final versions of papers To submit special session proposals (as pdf) or for additional information regarding the special sessions, please email special-sessions-icmi2009 at acm.org From kanda at atr.jp Mon Feb 2 01:15:19 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:15:19 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: RO-MAN2009 Message-ID: <006301c98516$c55a8b70$500fa250$@jp> Let me again announce CFP for Ro-Man2009, since the submission deadline is approaching. *** Call for Papers *** 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN2009) Toyama, Japan, Sep. 27 - Oct. 2, 2009 "Interaction Design based on Robotics for Our Society" RO-MAN 2009 will be held in Toyama, Japan, during Sep. 27 to Oct.2, 2009. RO-MAN addresses fundamental issues in coexistence of robots and humans from psychological and philosophical aspects over interaction and communication mechanisms to technological systems and architectures. Authors will have choice of ordinary "oral session" or "interactive oral session" that requires 1 min. of plenary talk, poster and exhibition of robots/systems. Toyama city is located in the center of Japan, and surrounded by beautiful nature such as the Japan Sea and Alps. One can travel to the three big cities, Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya in only a few hours by JR train. There are international flights to Seoul, Vladivostok, Dalian and Shanghai. Please visit the website http://ro-man2009.org for the detailed information. ** Important Dates ** Feb. 15 '09 Proposals for special sessions and workshops/tutorials Feb. 28'09 Notification of special sessions and workshops/tutorials Mar. 15'09 Submission of full-length paper and/or video Jun. 15'09 Notification of paper acceptance Jul. 15'09 Submission of camera-ready final papers *** Robot Week in Toyama, Japan *** - Japan Robot Festival: Sep. 25-27, 2009 - IEEE RO-MAN: Sep. 27-Oct. 2, 2009 ** Relevant Topics ** Fundamental Interaction Components - Auditory cognition: cognition/interpretation of voice, sound, or language - Brain Machine Interface - Haptic interaction - Motion planning and navigation in the vicinity of humans - Novel interfaces and interaction modalities - Robot software architecture and development tool - Visual sensing and cognition: gesture, posture, face, facial expression Intelligence and Emotion - Context awareness and intention understanding - Intelligent Space - Knowledge and inference processing - Machine learning and adaptation in human-robot interaction - Motivations and emotions in robots Social/Ethical/Aesthetic Issues - Evaluation methods and new methodologies - Human factors and ergonomics in human-robot interaction - Innovative robot designs for human-robot interaction - Sociality/personality of robots or virtual characters Case Studies and Applications - Androids and other applications - Assistive robotics for supporting the elderly or people with special needs - Robotic companions and social robots - Robots in art, education and entertainment - Virtual and augmented tele-presence applications From kanda at atr.jp Mon Feb 2 01:42:19 2009 From: kanda at atr.jp (Takayuki Kanda) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:42:19 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Videos: RO-MAN2009 Message-ID: <007801c9851a$8bc72d60$a3558820$@jp> Ro-Man2009 opens submission for video as well as paper. So, let me announce the call for videos as well. *** Call for Videos *** 18th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN2009) Toyama, Japan, Sep. 27 - Oct. 2, 2009 "Interaction Design based on Robotics for Our Society" RO-MAN 2009 will be held in Toyama, Japan, during Sep. 27 to Oct.2, 2009. RO-MAN addresses fundamental issues in coexistence of robots and humans from psychological and philosophical aspects over interaction and communication mechanisms to technological systems and architectures. In this RO-MAN, the following three kinds of video sessions will be held in addition to the ordinary oral session and interactive oral session. Videos provide an effective way to clearly present your work and idea. Exciting videos are sought for these sessions. ** Video Session Category ** In this session, videos are evaluated based on technical novelty and importance. A full-length technical paper in RO-MAN format is also required for this video contribution. This session solicits videos presenting novel idea, artistic interests, creative design of robot system, etc. A one-page summary is required to explain the work in the video. This session focuses on "interaction" between human and real mechanical systems, such as robots, and/or software systems. Both technical videos and artistic videos are cordially invited for this session. A one-page summary is also required. ** Best Video Award ** This award is presented for each category based on each evaluation criteria. ** Video Submission ** 1.5-3 minutes video is required. Accepted videos will be published on a DVD and distributed to conference attendees. For the detailed information, please visit the website http://ro-man2009.org. ** Important Dates ** Mar. 15'09 Submission of video and full-length paper or summary Jun. 15'09 Notification of video acceptance Jul. 15'09 Submission of final version video and paper From hager at cs.jhu.edu Mon Feb 2 05:56:00 2009 From: hager at cs.jhu.edu (Greg Hager) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:56:00 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral position at JHU: Vision and Robotics for Medical Applications Message-ID: Postdoctoral Position at JHU We are seeking a postdoctoral fellow to take a leading role in the development of systems for sensor-based control and augmented reality display with application to retinal surgery. This position is part of a recent NIH BRP award which can be viewed at: http://www.researchgrantdatabase.com/g/1R01EB007969-01A1/A- Microsurgical-Assistant-System/ The chosen individual will participate in a multi-disciplinary team that is developing a broad range of imaging, display, and manipulation capabilities. He or she will have the opportunity to work on both theoretical and applied aspects of the project in close collaboration with graduate students, engineering staff and clinical personnel. He or she will also be encouraged to participate in and/or define other projects related to computer vision and imaging within the newly established Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics (www.lcsr.jhu.edu) and the Center for Computer-Integrated Surgical Systems and Technology (cisst.org). The position is available immediately and is renewable annually for up to four years. Further extension is possible based on performance and available funding. Qualified applicants should respond by email as soon as possible to Gregory Hager (hager at cs.jhu.edu) with full C.V. and a list of at least two references. Gregory D. Hager, Professor The Johns Hopkins University Department of Computer Science 121 CSEB, 3400 N. Charles St. Baltimore, MD 21218 Tel: 410-516-5521 Fax: 410-516-4410 Email: hager at cs.jhu.edu http://cirl.lcsr.jhu.edu/ Gregory D. Hager Professor of Computer Science Johns Hopkins University Office: 121 CSEB Phone: 410 516 5521 WWW: http://cs.jhu.edu/~hager From wimmer at tum.de Mon Feb 2 02:52:35 2009 From: wimmer at tum.de (Matthias Wimmer) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:52:35 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Post-doctoral position in Computer/Robot Vision, Technical University Munich, Germany Message-ID: <4986D073.6020209@tum.de> The Department of Informatics at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen invites applications for the position of a Managing Researcher for Camera-based Indoor Surveillance (m/f) The research will be conducted in the CoTeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems) Cluster of Excellence, which is located in Munich, and funded by the German Research Foundation. The main goal of this cluster is to endow technical systems with cognitive capabilities, such as perception, reasoning, learning, and planning. Technical systems are thus transformed into systems that "know what they are doing", which makes them much easier to interact and cooperate with, and more robust, flexible, and efficient. Starting from the human brain we investigate cognition for technical systems such as vehicles, robots, and factories. Your responsibilities: As a post-doctoral researcher, you will guide and manage a research group consisting of Ph.D. students, master students and undergraduates that aims at visually analyzing living environments, and collecting information about persons and objects, such as their position, identity, gesture, and activity. Cooperating research groups within the Cluster of Excellence make use of this information in order to implement cognitive behavior on household service robots. Your qualification: * Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a related discipline * Relevant expertise in computer vision, cameras, illumination techniques, and robotics * Interest and engagement in large scale research projects * Experience in project management and as a group leader Your advantages: * Good development of your career in a large scale research cluster * Autonomous work within a dynamic team * Challenging projects that allow you to integrate your own ideas As part of the excellence initiative of the German federal and state governments, the Technische Universitaet Muenchen pursues the strategic goal of substantially increasing the proportion of women in research and education and thus expressly invites qualified female scientists to apply for this position. We are looking forward to receiving your application: Prof. Dr. Bernd Radig, Dr. Matthias Wimmer Chair for Computer Vision and Knowledge-based Systems Technische Universit?t M?nchen Boltzmannstr. 3 85748 Garching bei M?nchen Phone: 089 / 289 17756 Fax: 089 / 289 17757 E-Mail: wimmerm at in.tum.de, radig at in.tum.de From rsiegwart at ethz.ch Wed Feb 4 06:09:07 2009 From: rsiegwart at ethz.ch (Siegwart Roland) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:09:07 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP: ISRR 2009 - 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research, August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland Message-ID: ========================================= ISRR 2009 - Call for Paper 14th International Symposium on Robotics Research August 31 - September 3, 2009, Lucerne, Switzerland --- http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch/ --- ========================================= Objective: The goal of the ISRR Symposia is to bring together active leading robotics researchers and pioneers from academia, government, and industry to assess and share their views and ideas about the state of the art in robotics, and to discuss promising new avenues for future research. All participants are kindly asked to convey the single track and highly interactive spirit of ISRR and take part in all sessions so that a stimulating and dynamic discussion can be established. As the flagship symposium of the International Foundation of Robotics Research (IFRR), this 14th edition of ISRR follows up on a long history of extraordinary meetings. Symposium Format: The Symposium will be held in an informal setting with a limited number of participants to encourage close technical and personal interactions. During the four-day Symposium, approximately 45 papers will be presented. The meeting will be organized as a single track meeting, and contributions that cover all aspects of robotics research are solicited. Sessions will be organized in themes, and all sessions will provide ample opportunity for discussion. As in previous years, the proceedings of the Symposium will be published as a Springer STAR series book. Attendance will be limited. Priority is given to authors and invited participants. Venue: The symposium will be held in Lucerne, one of the most charming and picturesque cities in Switzerland at the boarder of the Lace of Lucerne. Lucerne is easy to reach by direct trains from Zurich Airport. Paper Solicitation: Papers representing authoritative reviews of established research areas as well as papers reporting on new areas and pioneering work are sought for presentation at the Symposium. In addition to the open call, a well selected number of leading researchers will be solicited to contribute by personal invitation. Each submission will be reviewed by members of the Symposium Program Committee. The quality of the papers and the related presentations are a central priority for ISRR. Authors new to ISRR are particularly encouraged to submit. Submission Procedure: Papers must be submitted in LaTeX format according to the template for the Springer STAR series proceedings downloadable from the submission webpage. Papers may not exceed 16 pages in this format. All papers must be submitted electronically in PDF format through the online submission system found on the symposium webpage. Important Dates: - March 31, 2009: Submission of papers - May 31, 2009: Notification of paper acceptance - July 15, 2009: Submission of final camera-ready papers - July 15, 2009: Deadline for early registration - August 31, 2009: Start Conference (Evening Reception) - September 3, 2009: End Conference (Lunch time) Main Sponsor: International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ Committee: General Co-Chairs: Roland Siegwart, ETH Zurich Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Germany Program Co-Chairs: Tomomasa Sato (Asia/Oceania) Henrik Christensen (Americas) Raja Chatila (Europa/Africa) Publication Chair Cedric Pradalier Web Master Ralf K?stner Conference Office Cornelia Della Casa Luciana Borsatti International Foundation of Robotics Research http://www.ifrr.org/ President Oussama Khatib Executive Officers Hirochika Inoue Gerd Hirzinger Takeo Kanade Honorary Officers Ruzena Bajcsy Rod Brooks George Giralt Bernie Roth Officers Robert Bolles Herman Bruyninckx Raja Chatila Henrik Christensen Paolo Dario Rudiger Dillmann Shigeo Hirose John Hollerbach Ray Jarvis Makoto Kaneko Dan Koditschek Tomomasa Sato Yoshiaki Shirai Roland Siegwart _________________________ Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Z?rich, CLA E 33 Tannenstrasse 3 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Office: +41 44 632 23 58 Fax: +41 86 079 214 49 27 Mobile: +41 79 214 49 27 E-Mail: rsiegwart at ethz.ch WWW: www.asl.ethz.ch ******************************************** International Symposium on Robotics Research ISRR 2009 - http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch ******************************************** From yangl at HLT.UTDALLAS.EDU Tue Feb 3 15:47:01 2009 From: yangl at HLT.UTDALLAS.EDU (Yang Liu) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:47:01 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICMI-MLMI 2009 Call for Papers -- Submission deadline: May 22, 2009 Message-ID: Please note the correction to the submission deadline. It should be May 22, 2009. ***** First Call for Papers ******** ***** Submission deadline: May 22, 2009 ******* ICMI-MLMI 2009 Cambridge, MA, USA, November 2-6 2009 sponsored by ACM SIGCHI The Eleventh International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces and The Sixth Workshop on Machine Learning for Multimodal Interaction will jointly take place in the Boston area from November 2-6, 2009. The main aim of ICMI-MLMI 2009 is to further scientific research within the broad field of multimodal interaction, methods and systems. This joint conference will focus on major trends and challenges in this area, and work to identify a roadmap for future research and commercial success. ICMI-MLMI 2009 will feature a single-track main conference with keynote speakers, panel discussions, technical paper presentations, poster sessions, and demonstrations of state of the art multimodal systems and concepts. It will be followed by workshops. Venue: The conference will take place at the MIT Media Lab, widely known for its innovative spirit. Organized in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, ICMI-MLMI 2009 provides an excellent setting for brainstorming and sharing the latest advances in multimodal interaction, systems, and methods in a city known as one of the top historical, technological, and scientific centers of the US. Important dates: Workshop proposals March 1, 2009 Special Sessions proposals March 1, 2009 Paper submission May 22, 2009 Author notification July 20, 2009 Camera-ready due August 20, 2009 Conference Nov 2-4, 2009 Workshops Nov 5-6, 2009 Topics of interest: Multimodal and multimedia processing: Algorithms for multimodal fusion and multimedia fission Multimodal output generation and presentation planning Multimodal discourse and dialogue modeling Generating non-verbal behaviors for embodied conversational agents Machine learning methods for multimodal processing Multimodal input and output interfaces: Gaze and vision-based interfaces Speech and conversational interfaces Pen-based interfaces Haptic interfaces Interfaces to virtual environments or augmented reality Biometric interfaces combining multiple modalities Adaptive multimodal interfaces Multimodal applications: Mobile interfaces Meeting analysis and intelligent meeting spaces Interfaces to media content and entertainment Human-robot interfaces and human-robot interaction Vehicular applications and navigational aids Computer-mediated human to human communication Interfaces for intelligent environments and smart living spaces Universal access and assistive computing Multimodal indexing, structuring and summarization Human interaction analysis and modeling: Modeling and analysis of multimodal human-human communication Audio-visual perception of human interaction Analysis and modeling of verbal and non-verbal interaction Cognitive modeling of users of interactive systems Multimodal data, evaluation, and standards: Evaluation techniques and methodologies for multimodal interfaces Authoring techniques for multimodal interfaces Annotation and browsing of multimodal data Architectures and standards for multimodal interfaces Paper Submission: There are two different submission categories: regular paper and short paper. The page limit is 8 pages for regular papers and 4 pages for short papers. The presentation style (oral or poster) will be decided by the committee based on suitability and schedule. Demo Submission: Proposals for demonstrations shall be submitted to demo chairs electronically. A two page description with photographs of the demonstration is required. Doctoral Spotlight: Funds are expected from NSF to support participation of doctoral candidates at ICMI-MLMI 2009, and a spotlight session is planned to showcase ongoing thesis work. Students interested in travel support can submit a short or long paper as specified above. Organizing committee General Co-Chairs: James L. Crowley, INRIA, Grenoble, France Yuri A. Ivanov, MERL, Cambridge, USA Christopher R. Wren, Google, Cambridge, USA Program Co-Chairs: Daniel Gatica-Perez, Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland Michael Johnston, AT&T Labs Research, Florham Park, USA Rainer Stiefelhagen, University of Karlsruhe, Germany Treasurer: Janet McAndlees, MERL, Cambridge, USA Sponsorship Herve Bourlard, Idiap Research Institute, Martigny, Switzerland Student Chair Rana el Kaliouby, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA Local Arrangements Cole Krumbholz, MITRE, Bedford, USA Deb Roy, MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, USA Publicity Sonya Allin , University of Toronto, Canada Yang Liu, University of Texas at Dallas, USA Publications Louis-Philippe Morency, University of South California, USA Workshops Xilin Chen, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Steve Renals, University of Edinburgh, Scotland Demos Denis Lalanne, University of Fribourg, Germany Enrique Vidal, Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain Posters Kenji Mase, Nagoya University, Japan From gregc at jhu.edu Tue Feb 3 07:46:50 2009 From: gregc at jhu.edu (Greg Chirikjian) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 10:46:50 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA'09 Stochastic Kinematics Tutorial Message-ID: ----------------------------------------------------------- IEEE ICRA'09 TUTORIAL Stochastic Kinematics ----------------------------------------------------------- Greetings, I will be offering a tutorial at ICRA'09 on the topic of Stochastic Kinematics Wednesday, May 13 2009, 9:00-12:00 http://custer.lcsr.jhu.edu/ICRA_2009_Tutorial:_Stochastic_Kinematics This tutorial will be based on my forthcoming book: ``Stochastic Models, Information Theory, and Lie Groups.'' Regards, Greg Chirikjian Johns Hopkins University From cjenkins at cs.brown.edu Wed Feb 4 15:58:44 2009 From: cjenkins at cs.brown.edu (Odest Chadwicke Jenkins) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:58:44 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJCAI 2009 Robotics Exhibition and Workshop Message-ID: <498A2BB4.4000401@cs.brown.edu> We are pleased to announce The 2009 IJCAI Robotics Exhibition and Workshop featuring: Workshop: Building on Academic Robotics Mobile Manipulation Challenge Learning from Demonstration Challenge Multi-Robot Teaming Challenge Student Robotics Challenge The Robot Exhibition Held in conjunction with IJCAI 2009, The International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence July 13-16, 2009 Pasadena, CA, USA and AAAI 2010 Robot Challenge Planning Event @ Willow Garage http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/ijcai09/ ---------------------- The Eighteenth Edition of Robotics Program at AAAI and IJCAI will feature the long-standing Robotics Exhibitions as well as demonstration of challenges in emerging areas of robotics research. The Robotics Program has a long tradition of demonstrating innovating research in robotics at the intersection with artificial intelligence. This year, the IJCAI-09 Robotics Program will feature an open robotics exhibition, demonstrations for robotics challenge problems, and a workshop to present current results and discuss future directions. Moving forward, the theme for IJCAI-09 Robotics is "New Challenges for Robotics". This theme aims to cultivate challenge experiments to advance specific problems in robotics research and education. Each challenge is intended to be an experiment designed to motivate and evaluate an individual function of artificial intelligence for robotics, similar to the Semantic Robot Vision Challenge at AAAI-07. These challenges are meant to identify problems of interest as well as promote common metrics and experiments that are reproducible by individual researchers. This year, we invite participants to demonstrate projects related to the following challenges: * Mobile Manipulation: in the form of fetching various household objects * Learning from Demonstration: teaching robots policies through human guidance * Multi-Robot Teaming: such as for wireless coverage and other scenarios * Student Robotics Challenge: to motivate educational participation and curriculum These demonstrations will serve as a foundation for more refined and commonly pursued challenges for 2010, as well as other emerging challenges. More details can be found at the IJCAI 2009 Robotics website: http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/ijcai09/ ---------------------- *** 2010 Planning Event @ Willow Garage *** In preparation for AAAI 2010 Robotics Challenges, a special planning event will be collocated with the AAAI-09 Spring Symposia to propose and discuss potential challenge problems. This event will hosted by Willow Garage during the afternoon of March 25, 2009 and open to all participants of the Spring Symposia. More details for the agenda and logistics of this event are to come soon and will be posted here. If you plan to attend this event, please RSVP by sending an email to Monica Anderson (anderson at cs.ua.edu). Challenges for AAAI 2010 will be announced during the IJCAI-09 Robotics Program. ---------------------- Call for Participation IJCAI-09 Robotics Exhibition The Robotics Exhibition is open to demonstrations in all areas of robotics research, education, and commercial development. Demonstrations are preferred to be live demonstrations of robots in action, but can also be combined video and poster presentations of interesting robotics projects. Those interested in exhibiting should prepare a 1-2 page proposal containing: (1) the names and affiliation of the exhibitors; (2) a summary of the objectives and methods of the underlying research; (3) description or visual of what the exhibit (or video) will show. The proposal must be emailed to Monica Anderson (anderson at cs.ua.edu) by March 30, 2009 as a PDF document. IJCAI-09 Robotics Challenges Participation in the Robotics Challenges will be handled by the organizers of the individual challenges. Please refer to the websites for the individual challenges or consult the corresponding organizers. IJCAI-09 Robotics Workshop All participants accepted for the Robotics Exhibition and Challenges are invited to participate in the IJCAI-09 Robotics Workshop. Proposals for participation in the workshop alone will not be considered. ---------------------- Important Dates (tentative) 11/04/08 Call for Participation Announced 03/25/09 Special AAAI-10 planning event at AAAI-09 SSS 03/30/09 1-page Exhibition Proposal Due 04/05/09 Notification of Acceptance 05/01/09 2-page Abstract for Proceedings due 07/13/09 IJCAI 2009 Robotics Workshop 07/14/09 IJCAI 2009 Robotics Challenges and Exhibition begins 07/16/09 IJCAI 2009 Robotics Challenges and Exhibition ends ---------------------- Organizing Committee Event Co-Chairs: Chad Jenkins (Brown University) Monica Anderson (University of Alabama) Learning from Demonstration Chair: Andrea Thomaz (Georgia Tech) Mobile Manipulation Co-Chairs: Radu Bogdan Rusu (TU Munich) Matei Ciocarlie (Columbia University) Multi-Robot Teaming Co-Chairs: Radhika Nagpal (Harvard University) Chih-Han Yu (Harvard University) Justin Werfel (NECSI/Harvard Medical School) Student Robotics Challenge Co-Chairs: Zach Dodds (Harvey Mudd College) Deb Burhans (Canisius College) From emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com Fri Feb 6 23:42:53 2009 From: emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com (icra 2009) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 16:42:53 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ICRA09] [Reminder] CfP: Workshop on "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" - Deadline extension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: (apologies for multiple postings) ----------------------------------------------------------- IEEE ICRA'09 WORKSHOP Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics ----------------------------------------------------------- Dear Colleagues, due to several requests, the deadline for the abstract submission to the workshop on "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" has been extended to February 7 (Saturday) 2009, midnight pacific time. =============================== The full-day workshop "Current Challenges and Future Perspectives of Emotional Humanoid Robotics" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 17, 2009 (Sunday) ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------------------------------------------------- http://www.robocasa.net/workshop/2009icra ----------------------------------------------------------- GOAL AND SCOPE ----------------------------------------------------------- This full day workshop will address the current challenges and the future perspectives of emotional humanoid robotics, from perception to expression, including modeling and understanding. It will also address the creation of mental and interaction models, and evaluation metrics for the interaction. This workshop will offer a unique opportunity of interaction among leading international researchers from a wide range of disciplines, and will provide to those interested in the field of emotional robotics the possibility to spend a full-immersion day with experts and colleagues, to learn and to discuss personally and interactively. ----------------------------------------------------------- List of topics ----------------------------------------------------------- This workshop will cover both the basis of robotic technology (such as mechanical engineering, control engineering, materials engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, information engineering, and ergonomics) and many other disciplines, including medicine, physiology, psychology, and neuroscience, as well as sociology, law, and ethics. In particular: * Human emotions & emotional humanoid robots; * Understanding the human motor control and human perception, and their relationship with emotions; * Novel paradigms of collaboration and interaction between robots and humans * Trends in neuroscience and neuroscientific models relevant to the design of new emotional robotic systems * Robotic platforms usable for validating and investigating neuroscientific models of emotions; * Biologically-inspired sensory-motor co-ordination The program will be selected to span both academic and industrial research. ----------------------------------------------------------- *NEW* Important Dates -> Extended deadlines ----------------------------------------------------------- February 7, 2009 (Sat): submission of two-page abstracts February 16, 2009 (Mon): Notification of acceptance/rejection March 1, 2009 (Mon): submission of final contributions --------------------------------------------------------- Abstract submission --------------------------------------------------------- Prospective authors should submit their contributions electronically in PDF format to the address emotionalhumanoidrobotics at gmail.com by February 7, 2009. The abstract submission should include: * Title * List of authors and affiliations * Abstract of 500-800 words * References to your own related work relevant web links * Figure captions * Figures should be submitted as attachment to the email A maximum of 2 figures is accepted. The figures (in jpeg, gif, or png formats) should be an attachment to the email. The abstracts of accepted contributions will be published on the workshop web site. A journal special issue is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. --------------------------------------------------------- Organizers --------------------------------------------------------- * Atsuo TAKANISHI Department of Mechanical Engineering Waseda University * Massimiliano ZECCA, Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care Waseda University ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Massimiliano ZECCA, Ph.D. Research Associate ASMeW - http://www.waseda.jp/scoe/ Institute for Biomedical Engineering, Consolidated Research Institute for Advanced Science and Medical Care Waseda University Takanishi Lab - http://www.takanishi.mech.waseda.ac.jp/ RoboCasa - http://www.robocasa.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------- From glyang at SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg Sat Feb 7 00:25:21 2009 From: glyang at SIMTech.a-star.edu.sg (Yang Guilin, Dr) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 16:25:21 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] AIM 2009 Paper Submission Deadline: Extended to 15 Feb 2009 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Due to many requests for extensions, the long Chinese New Year holidays, and some teething problems experienced by first time user of Paperplaza, the deadline for submission of papers has been extended to midnight of 15 Feb 2009, Singapore time. This is the final extension and we cannot afford to extend it further. Hope you can quickly upload your submissions before the deadline, to give more time in case you encounter problems. We would appreciate if you could help us forward the following Call for Papers to those who might be interested. AIM 2009 Call for Papers: The 2009 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics will be held on July 14-17, 2009 in Suntec International Convention and Exhibition Center, Singapore. The theme of the conference is "Mechatronics for Everyday Lives". AIM 2009 conference invites submissions of high quality research papers describing original work on abstractions, algorithms, theories, methodologies, and case studies on the following topics: Actuators, Automotive Systems, Bioengineering, Data Storage Systems, Electronic Packaging, Fault Diagnosis, Human-Machine Interfaces, Industry Applications, Information Technology, Intelligent Systems, Machine Vision, Manufacturing, Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems, Micro/Nano Technology, Modeling and Design, Motion Vibration and Noise Control, Neural and Fuzzy Control, Opto-Electronic Systems, Prototyping, Real-Time and Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation, Robotics, Sensors, System Integration, Transportation Systems, and other fields of mechatronics. Contributed Papers: Original full papers must be submitted in PDF format prepared strictly following the IEEE PDF Requirements for Creating PDF Documents for the IEEE Xplore(r). For detailed format information, please visit the conference website: http://www.aim2009.org. Accepted and presented papers will be indexed by EI and included in IEEE Xplore(r). Best Paper Award: All submitted papers will be included in the evaluation for the Best Conference Paper Award. Tutorials & Workshops: Proposals for half day or full day tutorials and workshops addressing new topics in intelligent mechatronics are invited for submission to the T/W Chairs. Proposals must include (1) statement of objectives, (2) intended audiences, (3) list of speakers, and (4) list of topics. Organized Sessions: Organized session proposers should submit to the Organized Session Chairs a brief statement of purpose for the session as well as the abstract of the papers to be included. A typical organized session consists of 4 to 5 related papers. Technical Tours: In parallel to the technical sessions, the conference organizers will provide a number of technical tours to the participants to the major industrial companies, research institutions, and universities in Singapore. Details of the industrial tours will be posted on the conference website. Important Dates: 2009/02/15 Submission of Tutorial and Workshops Proposals 2009/02/15 Submission of Full Paper 2009/04/15 Notification of Paper Status 2009/05/15 Submission of Final Paper 2009/05/15 Early Bird Registration With best regards, Dr Guilin Yang Publicity Co-Chair, AIM 2009 Conference website: http://www.aim2009.org From jeedward at yahoo.com Wed Feb 4 13:18:54 2009 From: jeedward at yahoo.com (John Edward) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:18:54 -0800 (PST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Paper submission deadline extended: ARCS-09 Message-ID: <596497.28322.qm@web45913.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Paper submission deadline extended: ARCS-09 ? The deadline for draft paper submission at the 2009 International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Control Systems (ARCS-09) (website: http://www.PromoteResearch.org ) is extended due to numerous requests from the authors. The conference will be held during July 13-16 2009 in Orlando, FL, USA. We invite draft paper submissions. The conference will take place at the same time and venue where several other international conferences are taking place. The other conferences include: ????????? International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR-09) ????????? International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics and Chemoinformatics (BCBGC-09) ????????? International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems and Web Technologies (EISWT-09) ????????? International Conference on High Performance Computing, Networking and Communication Systems (HPCNCS-09) ????????? International Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ISP-09) ????????? International Conference on Recent Advances in Information Technology and Applications (RAITA-09) ????????? International Conference on Software Engineering Theory and Practice (SETP-09) ????????? International Conference on Theory and Applications of Computational Science (TACS-09) ????????? International Conference on Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (TMFCS-09) ? The website http://www.PromoteResearch.org contains more details. ? Sincerely John Edward Publicity committee ? ? ? ? From monica.reggiani at unipd.it Wed Feb 4 12:25:55 2009 From: monica.reggiani at unipd.it (Monica Reggiani) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:25:55 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP: ICAR 2009 (14th International Conference on Advanced Robotics) (2nd call) Message-ID: <956760ea0902041225u1dae7146x7061a3bf1e12c1fd@mail.gmail.com> ** Apologies for cross-postings. ** ** Please send to interested colleagues and students.** ===================================================================== CALL FOR PAPERS 14th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) Munich, Germany, June 22nd to 26th, 2009 Theme: Able Robots http://www.icar2009.org/ http://www.icar2009.org/download/ICAR2009_CPF.pdf Paper submission deadline: March 13, 2009 Sponsored by the German Robotics Society (DGR) Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) ====================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------ CONFERENCE THEME ------------------------------------------------------------ The theme of ICAR 2009 will be "able robots", where "able" is the lexical intersection of "cap-able", "depend-able", "measur-able", "afford-able". These adjectives stand as synonyms for four rather fundamental and important features of robots which are supposed to deliver useful and economically competitive services in everyday environments under everyday conditions. Robots need to be "cap-able" of performing functions, which are considered to be of real use to a customer. These functions and capabilities have to be shown in a "depend-able" manner 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and 52 weeks per year. Service robots, which have become products, have become "measur-able" because their price performance ratio determines their competitiveness. Measurability of functions, components, system designs is needed to develop competitive service robot products. Finally, attention must be paid not only to the development of high technology but also to "afford-able" technology, which leads to a competitive price performance ratio of the eventual service robotics products. We solicit original high-quality contributions particularly, but not exclusively addressing the following scientific and technological issues: * cap-able * motion planning and navigation, reactive and sensor-based planning, visual navigation, mapping and localization, robot control, kinematics and dynamics, behavior based systems, robot architectures, distributed robot systems, sensing and perception, scene understanding, situation awareness, force and tactile sensing, haptics, sensor fusion, visual servoing, tracking, manipulation, mobile manipulation, grasping, reasoning, learning, interaction, service robotics, domestic robotics, home automation, field and service robotics * afford-able * low-cost localization, low-cost sensing and 3D perception, low-cost wide-area navigation, low-cost collision detection and obstacle avoidance, low-cost manipulation and grasping, low-cost actuation, low-cost coverage, low-cost robot design * measur-able * performance measures and procedures, benchmarks, experimental robotics, standards * depend-able * robust autonomy, error recovery, remote diagnosis and monitoring, self-modeling, self-monitoring, self-repair Special sessions will be organized for the following topics (amongst others): * disposable robots * robotic learning by experimentation ------------------------------------------------------------ SUBMISSION OF PAPERS AND WORKSHOP/TUTORIAL PROPOSALS ------------------------------------------------------------ Authors are encouraged to submit their papers electronically in PDF format through http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=icar2009 The page limit for submission is six pages in the double-column publication format (including figures, tables, and references). A maximum of two additional pages are permitted at an extra charge payable at the time of submitting the final, camera ready version of the paper. At least one author of each accepted paper should attend the conference to present the paper. ICAR 2009 is also currently inviting workshop and tutorial proposals for the Workshop Program. A proposal with title, a brief description of the workshop/tentative call for papers, and organizers' names and affiliations should be submitted to the Workshop Chair by February 15, 2009. For detailed up-to-date information and step-by-step instructions, please visit the official ICAR website: http://www.icar2009.org/authorsarea/ ------------------------------------------------------------ IMPORTANT DATES ------------------------------------------------------------ Workshop/Tutorial Submission Deadline: February 15, 2009 Paper Submission Deadline: March 13, 2009 Notification of Acceptance: April 15, 2009 Camera-ready Paper Submission: April 30, 2009 ------------------------------------------------------------ COMMITTEES ------------------------------------------------------------ * Honorary Chairs Rolf Dieter Schraft, Fraunhofer IPA Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics * General Chair Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Univ. of Applied Sciences * Program Chair Paolo Fiorini, Univ. of Verona * Workshop and Tutorial Chair Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg Univ. of Applied Sciences * Publicity Chair Monica Reggiani, Univ. of Padua * Financial Chair Rainer Bischoff, KUKA Roboter GmbH * Publication Chair Martin H?gele, Fraunhofer IPA * Industrial Liaison Chair Gisbert Lawitzky, Siemens AG * Local Organizer Corinna Noltenius, GPS Gesellschaft f?r Produktionssysteme GmbH * International Steering Committee J. Angeles (Canada) A.K. Bejczy (USA) A. Casals (Spain) P. Dario (Italy) B. Espiau (France) G. Giralt (France) J.O. Gray (UK) G. Hirzinger (Gemany) O. Khatib (USA) G. Sandini (Italy) R.D. Schraft (Gemany) J. Trevelyan (Australia) Y. Umetani (Japan) ------------------------------------------------------------ VENUE ------------------------------------------------------------ All sessions and activities of the ICAR 2009 conference will be held at the Munich Marriott Hotel, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Germany. ------------------------------------------------------------ FURTHER INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------------------ Inquiries may be sent by e-mail message to the general chair: Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: erwin.prassler at fh-brs.de Detailed information on the Conference is available at the Conference web page: http://www.icar2009.org/ From michael.gauthier at femto-st.fr Fri Feb 6 07:11:36 2009 From: michael.gauthier at femto-st.fr (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Micha=EBl_Gauthier?=) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:11:36 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] robotic micro-assembly and self-assembly Workshop - March 12th 09 - Brussels - Belgium Message-ID: <498C5328.6070203@femto-st.fr> Dear all, A scientific workshop will be held in Belgium in March on '*the assembly of microcomponents with a hybrid strategy using robotic handling and self-assembly' *: the goal is to present hybrid solutions where the coarse positioning is done with robotic tools and the fine positioning with self-assembly. 8 talks is proposed on the following topics: - applications of precision pick and place or assembly - physical principles suitable for self-assembly (capillary forces, hydrophillic forces) - modelling and simulation of these physical effects (surface science, adhesion, capillary forces, mechanical deformation,...) - experimental tools and results. More information available on http://beams.ulb.ac.be/beams/staff/perso/plambert/hydromelworkshop.html. This workshop will also give the * opportunity to discuss forward the preparation of European FP7 projects*. Best regards, Micha?l Gauthier. -- ------------------------------- Micha?l Gauthier Institut FEMTO-ST - Dept. AS2M 24 rue Savary - 25000 BESANCON, France, EU GPS (47?15'06, 05?59'39) ------------------------------- Tel: +33 (0)381.402.810, +33(0)677.378.410 www.femto-st.fr ------------------------------- Tel Personnel : +33 (0)952.579.686 ------------------------------- From roderich.gross at epfl.ch Fri Feb 6 00:15:46 2009 From: roderich.gross at epfl.ch (Roderich GROSS) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:15:46 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Special Issue on Swarm Intelligence and Swarm Robotics of the Neural Computing & Applications journal Message-ID: Call for Papers on ------- SWARM INTELLIGENCE AND SWARM ROBOTICS ------- for a special issue of the journal Neural Computing & Applications http://www.springer.com/journal/521 ------- AIM AND SCOPE ------- Swarm intelligence refers to the phenomenon of a system of spatially distributed individuals coordinating their actions in a decentralized and self-organized manner so as to exhibit complex collective behavior. Such systems tend to have large numbers of individual agents that interact with each other in simple ways. This allows swarm-intelligent systems to be inherently robust and flexible. Moreover, systems with these properties can range in size from the nano to the macro scale. Swarm-intelligent systems are common throughout nature. Examples are bacteria colonies, social insects, and flocks/herds of vertebrates. In addition, humans have produced a variety of (artificial) swarm systems ranging from swarm-based optimization algorithms to sensor networks, swarms of robots, and smart materials. In each of these natural or artificial systems, populations of agents change their spatiotemporal configuration (in computational space or the real world) solely based on the agents' local interactions with each other and the environment. This special issue aims to bring together contributions from studies of computational and physical swarm systems which leverage similar swarm-intelligent mechanisms. We thereby intend to help outline a common methodological framework for the design and analysis of swarm-intelligent systems. We are soliciting contributions on (but not limited to) the following topics: * Applications in swarm robotics (ad-hoc and sensor networks, coverage, actuator arrays, collective construction, etc.) * Large-scale reconfigurable robot systems, multi-robot systems, self-assembling systems, smart materials * Modeling natural or artificial swarms and mixed biological / artificial systems * Swarm-intelligent optimization techniques including Particle Swarm Optimization * Amorphous Computing, Spatial Computing, Organic Computing, Neural Computing * Design methodologies for swarm-intelligent systems (global-to-local programming, evolution of swarming algorithms and hardware, etc.) * Theoretical and empirical analysis and benchmarking (consensus, distributed optimization, flocking, shape changing, task allocation, etc.) ------- MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION ------- Authors are encouraged to submit high-quality, original work that has neither appeared in, nor is under consideration by, other journals. Manuscripts should be submitted to: http://nca.edmgr.com/. Please select article type: "Swarm Intelligence and Swarm Robotics". Important dates: May 1, 2009, Submission deadline August 1, 2009, Notification of acceptance October 1, 2009, Revised / Final manuscript The special issue is expected to be published by Springer early 2010. ------- GUEST EDITORS ------- Dr. Nikolaus Correll (nikolaus at csail.mit.edu) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA Prof. Zhihua Cui (cuizhihua at gmail.com) Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, P.R. China Dr. Xiao-Zhi Gao (gao at cc.hut.fi) Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Dr. Roderich Gross (roderich.gross at epfl.ch) Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Switzerland -- Roderich Gross, PhD Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL, LSRO Station 9 CH-1015 Lausanne http://people.epfl.ch/roderich.gross From rad at eecs.harvard.edu Wed Feb 4 12:30:34 2009 From: rad at eecs.harvard.edu (Radhika Nagpal) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:30:34 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJCAI 2009 Robotics: Multi-Robot Teaming Challenge Message-ID: =================================================== MULTI-ROBOT TEAMING CHALLENGE IJCAI 2009: Robotics Exhibition and Workshops Pasadena, CA, July 13-16, 2009. =================================================== Call For Participation http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/ssr/events/ijcai09-mrt.htm The Eighteenth Edition of Robotics Program at AAAI and IJCAI will feature the long-standing Robotics Exhibitions as well as demonstration of challenges in emerging areas of robotics research. The Robotics Program has a long tradition of demonstrating innovating research in robotics at the intersection with artificial intelligence. This year, the IJCAI-09 Robotics Program will feature an open robotics exhibition, demonstrations for robotics challenge problems, and a workshop to present current results and discuss future directions. The Multi-Robot Teaming Challenge is a multi-year challenge aimed at advancing science and applications of multi-robot teams. Cooperation is exploited throughout nature, from humans to insects, to allow individuals of a given capability to achieve tasks of higher complexity and exploit parallelism and robustness. As single robots become more capable, so should our ability to program multi-robot teams to achieve tasks of greater complexity. In this first year of the challenge, we aim to bring together an exhibition of research groups to demonstrate the range of tasks where multiple robots can coordinate to achieve tasks that are beyond the ability of single robots. Example tasks include forming ad-hoc wireless networks between distant objects of interest, coordinated search and discovery, collective transport of larger objects, or even collective construction. Our long-term goal is to define a series of increasingly challenging experiments for future events that push forward both research and practical applications of multi-robot systems. The first year goal is to exhibit and explore a range of tasks and approaches to multi-robot teams, and to use this as a basis for designing future more targeted challenges. CONTRIBUTIONS can include live hardware demonstrations and/or short video clips, showcasing multi-robot teams. We highly encourage bringing hardware demonstrations where possible. Those interested in contributing should submit a 1-2 page proposal, by March 10 2009, containing the following information: - the names and affiliation of the exhibitors - description of the demonstration - summary of objectives and methods of the underlying research - citations to relevant or supporting papers - for a hardware demonstration, a list and short description of the hardware you will be using at the Challenge. SUBMISSION can be done via email to: rad at eecs.harvard.edu Notifications of acceptance will be sent by March 20, 2009. TRAVEL SUPPORT may be possible for selected participants and their hardware, depending on available funds and level of demand. MISSION: the IJCAI 2009 Robot Challenge will serve as the foundation for more focused and commonly pursued challenges for AAAI 2010 and beyond. The IJCAI 2009 Robotics site can be consulted for more information about the overall robotics events: http://robotics.cs.brown.edu/ijcai09/ Schedule The Multi-Robot Teaming Challenge will be held in conjunction with the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, in Pasadena, CA, July 13-16, 2009. Organizers Radhika Nagpal (Harvard University) Chad Jenkins (Brown University) Justin Werfel (NECSI/Harvard Medical School) Chih-han Yu (Harvard University) From rvelazquez at ags.up.mx Wed Feb 4 08:06:56 2009 From: rvelazquez at ags.up.mx (Ramiro Velazquez) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:06:56 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [CfP] 2009 IEEE AFRICON - Kenya Message-ID: <11958530902040806y6bdc33deh43ffc2090c2c847e@mail.gmail.com> ====================================== SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS ====================================== 2009 IEEE Conference in Africa (AFRICON) Nairobi, Kenya, 23-25 September, 2009 http://www.africon2009.org/ Dear colleague, You are kindly invited to submit your work and to participate in the 9th IEEE Conference in Africa (AFRICON) to be held in Nairobi, Kenya next September. AFRICON, the top-event of IEEE in Africa, is a forum for professionals, academia and industry to exchange ideas, present their newest research findings and to network. In particular, topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Control and Automation - Robotics and Mechatronics - Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) - Instrumentation and Measurement - Modeling and Simulation - Computer, Information Systems and Software Engineering - Computational Methods and Applications - Computational Semiotics - Communication and Signal Processing - Electromagnetics and Antennas - Engineering Applications and Health - Electron Devices and Circuits - Education and Engineering Skills development - Energy and ICT for rural areas - Engineering Management - Energy and Power Systems Prospective authors are invited to electronically submit full papers of their work in English (6 pages, ~4500 words, in pdf format), following the instructions available on the web page. Accepted papers will be published in an IEEE proceedings volume that will be indexed by EI and IEEExplore, and available at the time of the conference. IMPORTANT DEADLINES Submissions due: 31 March, 2009 Notification of acceptance: 31 May 2009 Final camera-ready papers: 30 June 2009 Early Registration deadline: 30 June, 2009 Late Registration deadline: 23 August, 2009 Conference: 23-25 September, 2009 Best regards -- Ramiro Vel?zquez ================================================= Assistant Professor Mecatr?nica y Control de Sistemas Universidad Panamericana - Escuela de Ingenier?a Fracc. R?sticos Calpulli. C.P. 20290 Aguascalientes, Ags., MEXICO Tel: (52-449) 910-6200 ext. 7304 Web: www.up.edu.mx Homepage: www.robotica-up.org/~ramiro.html ================================================= From alex at cs.iastate.edu Sun Feb 8 13:50:33 2009 From: alex at cs.iastate.edu (Alexander Stoytchev) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 15:50:33 -0600 (CST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICDL 2009: deadline extended (fwd) Message-ID: Due to some technical problems with the submission web page and several requests by authors, the paper deadline of the 8-th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) has been extended to: *** Friday, February 13, 2009 *** For submission instructions please visit the conference web page: http://www.icdl09.org/ The on-line paper submission system is at: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/ICDL2009/ With kind regards, Zhengyou Zhang & Jochen Triesch (ICDL 2009 Program Chairs) ======================================= Alex Stoytchev, ICDL-09 Publicity Chair http://www.ece.iastate.edu/~alexs/ From hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp Mon Feb 9 06:50:50 2009 From: hirata at irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp (Yasuhisa Hirata) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:50:50 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Advanced Robotics : Vol. 23, No. 1-2 issue Message-ID: <499042CA.5020402@irs.mech.tohoku.ac.jp> ************************************************************************ The Official International Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan Advanced Robotics Volume 23, Number 1-2, 2009 Regular Issue ************************************************************************ You have free access to the abstracts of all papers below from the following link, and can access the pdf files if you or your institution is subscribing to Advanced Robotics: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/vsp/arb/2009/00000023/f0020001 Table of Contents Rearrangement Planning of Multiple Movable Objects by a Mobile Robot pp. 1-18(18) Author: Ota, Jun Construction and Central Pattern Generator-Based Control of a Flipper-Actuated Turtle-Like Underwater Robot pp. 19-43(25) Authors: Zhao, Wei; Hu, Yonghui; Wang, Long Passive Step-Climbing Mechanism for a Mobility Aid pp. 45-64(20) Authors: Choi, Jin-Kyu; Park, Choong Sik; Kitagawa, Takahiro; Nakatani, Kotaro; Sugii, Haruo High-Precision Impedance Control Method for Flexible Base Moving Manipulators pp. 65-87(23) Authors: Salehi, M.; Vossoughi, G.R. A Novel High-Speed and High-Accuracy Manipulator of Planar Five-Link Structure: Modeling and Calibration pp. 89-112(24) Authors: Ji, Junhong; Sun, Lining; Zhu, Yuhong Study on Non-holonomic Cartesian Path Planning of a Free-Floating Space Robotic System pp. 113-143(31) Authors: Xu, Wenfu; Li, Cheng; Wang, Xueqian; Liu, Yu; Liang, Bin; Xu, Yangsheng Online Short-Term Multiple Sound Source Mapping for a Mobile Robot by Robust Motion Triangulation pp. 145-164(20) Authors: Sasaki, Yoko; Kagami, Satoshi; Mizoguchi, Hiroshi Adaptive Jacobian Force/Position Tracking Control of Robotic Manipulators in Compliant Contact with an Uncertain Surface pp. 165-183(19) Authors: Wang, Hanlei; Xie, Yongchun Sonar Map Construction for Autonomous Mobile Robots Using a Data Association Filter pp. 185-201(17) Authors: Lee, Yu-Cheol; Lim, Jong Hwan; Cho, Dong-Woo; Chung, Wan Kyun Development of an Intelligent Pneumatic Cylinder for Distributed Physical Human-Machine Interaction pp. 203-225(23) Authors: Faudzi, Ahmad 'Athif Mohd; Suzumori, Koichi; Wakimoto, Shuichi Shear Control of Elastomer Shear Pads for Variable Remote Center Compliance pp. 227-237(11) Author: Lee, Sangcheol Near-Optimum Folding for a Reconfigurable Snake-Like Robot pp. 239-256(18) Authors: Nourollah, Ali; Razzazi, Mohammadreza Development of a System for Simulation and Control of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle pp. 257-268(12) Authors: Nawrat, Aleksander; Kozak, Kamil These are the relevant links to Advanced Robotics: http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/index_e.html [Advanced Robotics Home Page] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Subscribe_e.html [How to Subscribe] http://www.rsj.or.jp/AR/Submit_e.html [Paper Submission] -- Shigeki Sugano (Waseda University, Japan) Editor-in-Chief, Advanced Robotics Takashi Yoshimi (Toshiba Corporation, Japan) Committee Chair of RSJ International Journal e-info at rsj.or.jp From vincent.padois at upmc.fr Mon Feb 9 09:20:10 2009 From: vincent.padois at upmc.fr (Vincent Padois) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:20:10 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoctoral position on "Task-based design of robots' architecture using EA and simulation" at ISIR (Paris) Message-ID: <499065CA.3020108@upmc.fr> One postdoctoral position is available at ISIR/UPMC/CNRS in Paris (http://www.isir.fr). This position is opened within the framework of the TeleMach project funded by ANR (http://www.telemachproject.fr). This project is devoted to the tele-operation of maintenance tasks in the cutting head of tunnel boring machine. More specifically, ISIR is focusing on the development of a software dedicated to the task-based design of robot architectures for complex tasks. A preliminary version of this software was developed using evolutionary algorithms (EA) as the core optimization technique and a kinematic simulator for the evaluation of solutions. A second version of the software has to be developed using SFERES (http://sferes.lip6.fr) and KDL (http://www.orocos.org/kdl). The implementation of control laws for redundant serial manipulators is also in the scope of the work of the postdoctoral scholar. Pre-requisites : - good experience in C++ programming; - experience in Matlab programming; - good experience in robot modelling and control; - experience in simulator developement; - fluent in English or French; - autonomy. Some knowledge on the implementation of optimization techniques based on evolutionary algorithms would also be appreciated but is not mandatory. Starting date : ASAP. Duration of the contract : 12 months. Monthly salary : 2050 euros (net pay). The candidates should send their curriculum and motivation letter to Vincent Padois (vincent.padois at upmc.fr). -- Vincent Padois Ma?tre de Conf?rences | Assistant Professor Universit? Pierre et Marie Curie Institut des Syst?mes Intelligents et de Robotique (CNRS UMR 7222) Pyramide - Tour 55 Boite Courrier 173 4 Place Jussieu F- 75252 Paris Cedex 5 Tel/Fax: +33 (0)1 44 27 63 83 / +33 (0)1 44 27 51 45 Web page: http://www.isir.fr/?op=view_profil&id=89 -- From pasa at liralab.it Sat Feb 7 15:33:40 2009 From: pasa at liralab.it (Giorgio Metta) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 00:33:40 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special session at ICDL09: deadline Feb 22nd Message-ID: <021701c9897c$82a8cb60$87fa6220$@it> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- Representations and Architectures for Cognitive Systems Special session for ICDL 09 Organized by: * Giorgio Metta, Italian Institute of Technology & University of Genoa, ITALY * Gordon Cheng, Technical University Munich, GERMANY * Tamim Asfour, University of Karlsruhe, GERMANY Call for papers The expected progress in machine learning and robotics shall enable tasks where robots have to have sophisticated cognitive skills. Unlike well$B!>(B accepted computational models, advances in neuroscience suggest that the underlying $B!H(Barchitecture$B!I(B that yields such cognitive skills may not necessarily be the result of a single monolithic algorithm. The results of neuroscience are elucidating the roles of different brain areas and their specific learning, sensorial and/or motor modality. We can envisage architectures (with the means to actually implement them) where multiple modes, actions, and learning components interact to achieve a given task. Examples exist in the domain of humanoid robotics for instance, where one might like to learn about attention, reaching, grasping but also to select appropriate actions depending on the environmental and object affordances. Moreover, the discovery of suitable representations is fundamental to the success of these architectures. This special session calls for papers to foster a discussion in one or more of the following topics (but not necessarily limited to): * Architectures (also brain inspired) or specific parts of more general architectures (with an interest to integration) integrating communication, control and cognitive abilities * Combination of different learning modes (e.g. reinforcement learning, unsupervised learning) * Representations suitable for scalable cognitive architectures * Developmental components in system$B!>(Blevel architectures * Action selection * Cortical$B!>(Blike representation and computation * Tool use in task solving, understanding of affordances * Essential Computational building blocks supporting cognitive architectures Submission * Please submit papers directly to Giorgio Metta at the following email address pasa at liralab.it by February 22nd, 2009. * Instructions about the paper size and format can be found at: http://www.icdl09.org/index.htm. A special issue for the IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development is currently being considered to host a selection of the special session papers (see http://ieee$B!>(Bcis.org/pubs/tamd/). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ABOUT ICDL 2009: 8th IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL2009) Shanghai, June 5-7, 2009 http://www.icdl09.org/ ICDL is a multidisciplinary conference pertaining to all subjects related to the development and learning processes of natural and artificial systems, including perceptual, cognitive, behavioral, emotional and all other mental capabilities that are exhibited by humans, higher animals, and robots. Its visionary goal is to understand autonomous development in humans and higher animals in biological, functional, and computational terms, and to enable such development in artificial systems. ICDL strives to bring together researchers in neuroscience, psychology, artificial intelligence, robotics and other related areas to encourage understanding and cross-fertilization of latest ideas. Topics of interest include, but are not restricted to: (1) Biological and biologically inspired architectures and general principles of development (2) Neuronal, cortical and pathway plasticity (3) Autonomous generation of internal representation, including feature identification (4) Neural networks for development and learning (5) Dynamics in neural systems and neurodynamical modeling (6) Attention mechanisms and the development of attention skills (7) Visual, auditory, touch systems and their development (8) Motor systems and their development (9) Language acquisition & understanding through development (10) Multimodal integration through development (11) Conceptual learning through development (12) Motivation, value, reinforcement, and novelty (13) Emotions and their development (14) Learning and training techniques for assisting development (15) Biological and biologically inspired thinking models and development of reasoning skills (16) Models of developmental disorders (17) Development of social skills (18) Philosophical and social issues of development (19) Robots with development and learning skills (20) Using robots to study development and learning ICDL2009 will feature invited plenary talks by world-renowned speakers, a variety of special sessions aligned with the conference theme, pre-conference tutorials, as well as regular technical sessions, and poster sessions. In addition to full-paper submissions, ICDL 2009 accepts one-page abstract submissions to encourage late-breaking results or for work that is not sufficiently mature for a full paper. Organizing Committee General Chair: Juyang Weng, Michigan State University, USA General Co-Chairs: Tiande Shou, Fudan University, China Xiangyang Xue, Fudan University, China Program Chairs: Jochen Triesch, Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Germany Zhengyou Zhang, Microsoft Research, USA Publication Chair: Yilu Zhang, GM Research, USA Publicity Chair: Alexander Stoytchev, Iowa State University, USA Publicity Co-Chairs: Hiroaki Wagatsuma, RIKEN, Japan (Asia) Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, INRIA Bordeaux - Sud-Ouest, France (Europe) Gedeon Deak, University of California at San Diego, USA (North America) Local Organization Sub-Committee: Hong Lu (Chair), Rui Feng (Hotel), Cheng Jin (Web), Yuefei Guo (Finance), Wenqiang Zhang (Publication) Important Dates January 25, 2009: Special session and tutorial proposals February 8, 2009: Full papers April 19, 2009: Accept/Reject notification for full papers April 26, 2009: One-page poster abstracts May 3, 2009: Accept/Reject notification for poster abstracts May 10, 2009: Final camera-ready papers ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- Giorgio Metta Italian Institute of Technology Via Morego, 30 16163 Genoa, Italy Ph: +39 010 7178-1411 Fax: +39 010 7170-817 URL: http://pasa.liralab.it From a.birk at jacobs-university.de Sun Feb 8 07:10:43 2009 From: a.birk at jacobs-university.de (Andreas Birk) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:10:43 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA Planetary Exploration Challenge 2009 Message-ID: <498EF5F3.6000405@jacobs-university.de> ====================================================================== Call for Participation ====================================================================== Planetary Exploration Challenge International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2009 Kobe, Japan, May 12 ? 17, 2009 ====================================================================== Planetary exploration through intelligent mobile robots is a fascinating endeavor. The tremendous success of the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity already shows the potential of this field where nevertheless many open problems remain. First of all, there are a large variety of different planetary environments and possible missions that are of scientific interest. Accordingly, various locomotion and manipulation challenges exist for planetary exploration robots. Second, communication delays or even dropouts make standard teleoperation very challenging. Intelligent autonomous functions are hence of tremendous interest to facilitate robot control. The ICRA Planetary Exploration Challenge consists of different mission components that reflect these open problems. A description of the challenges planned for this event can be found at Teams interested in participation are welcome to make suggestions for the challenges. The event will be a demonstration of state of the art research relevant to planetary exploration, especially in form of robot designs and intelligent autonomous functions. Teams interested in participating should send an email with subject ?Planetary Exploration Challenge, ICRA 2009? to Andreas Birk ( a.birk @ jacobs-university.de ) by 28. February 2009 with following information: * Team Name * Affiliation * Team Leader * Email * Team size (number of team members) For further information, please visit -- ======================================================= Prof. Dr. Andreas Birk ======================================================= Jacobs University School of Engineering and Science Research 1, Campus Ring 12, 28759 Bremen, Germany http://robotics.jacobs-university.de/ ======================================================= From gerhard.kraetzschmar at h-brs.de Mon Feb 9 02:14:05 2009 From: gerhard.kraetzschmar at h-brs.de (Gerhard Kraetzschmar) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 11:14:05 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CfP Workshops and Tutorials for ICAR 2009 (Final Call, Deadline Approaching) Message-ID: <8B28CB53-0E7E-4D91-A2D9-764990473AD4@h-brs.de> ** Deadline Approaching! Final Call! Second Reminder ** Dear robotics-worldwide list members, the International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) will be held in Munich next year in June. The conference organizers work hard to put together a very high quality technical program. I have the pleasure to solicit proposals for workshops and tutorials, to be held immediately prior to the conference technical program. All details are specified in the call below. Please do not hesitate to contact me, if you have questions or want to discuss ideas. Best regards, Gerhard Kraetzschmar ICAR 2009 Workshop and Tutorials Chair --------------------------------------- ** Apologies for cross-postings. ** ** Please send to interested colleagues and students.** ===================================================================== CALL FOR WORKSHOPS AND TUTORIALS 14th International Conference on Advanced Robotics (ICAR 2009) Munich, Germany, June 22nd to June 26th, 2009 Theme: Able Robots http://www.icar2009.org/ Workshop and tutorial proposal submission deadline: Feb 15, 2009 Workshop and tutorial program: Jun 22 to Jun 23, 2009 Sponsored by the German Robotics Society (DGR) Technically Co-sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) ====================================================================== ------------------------------------------------- CONFERENCE THEME ------------------------------------------------- The theme of ICAR 2009 will be "able robots", where "able" is the lexical intersection of "cap-able", "depend-able", "measur-able", "afford-able". These adjectives stand as synonyms for four rather fundamental and important features of robots which are supposed to deliver useful and economically competitive services in everyday environments under everyday conditions. Robots need to be "cap-able" of performing functions, which are considered to be of real use to a customer. These functions and capabilities have to be shown in a "depend-able" manner 24 hours per day, 7 days per week and 52 weeks per year. Service robots, which have become products, have become "measur-able" because their price performance ratio determines their competitiveness. Measurability of functions, components, system designs is needed to develop competitive service robot products. Finally, attention must be paid not only to the development of high technology but also to "afford-able" technology, which leads to a competitive price performance ratio of the eventual service robotics products. ------------------------------------------------- SUBMISSION OF WORKSHOP AND TUTORIAL PROPOSALS ------------------------------------------------- ICAR 2009 is inviting workshop and tutorial proposals for the Workshop and Tutorial Program. We solicit proposals -- particularly, but not exclusively -- addressing or complementing the core scientific and technological issues of the technical conference program: * cap-able * motion planning and navigation, reactive and sensor-based planning, visual navigation, mapping and localization, robot control, kinematics and dynamics, behavior-based systems, robot architectures, distributed robot systems, sensing and perception, scene understanding, situation awareness, force and tactile sensing, haptics, sensor fusion, visual servoing, tracking, manipulation, mobile manipulation, grasping, reasoning, learning, interaction, service robotics, domestic robotics, home automation, field and service robotics * afford-able * low-cost localization, low-cost sensing and 3D perception, low-cost wide-area navigation, low-cost collision detection and obstacle avoidance, low-cost manipulation and grasping, low-cost actuation, low-cost coverage, low-cost robot design * measur-able * performance measures and procedures, benchmarks, experimental robotics, standards * depend-able * robust autonomy, error recovery, remote diagnosis and monitoring, self-modeling, self-monitoring, self-repair Tutorial durations can be half-day or full-day. Workshop durations can be anything from half-day to two days. Proposals for tutorials should include - the title of the tutorial - a brief description of the tutorial content - a brief description of the target audience - the names, affiliations, and brief CVs of all speakers - a tentative schedule for the tutorial - a description of the material that will be supplied to participants - a listing of any equipment needed Proposals for workshops should include - the title of the workshop - a description of the workshop topics, motivations, and objectives - a brief description of the target audience - a list of workshop organizers and (if applicable) committee members (all confirmed, with name, affiliation, country for everyone) - a list of confirmed (invited) speakers and confirmed participants (with name, affiliations, country for everyone) - a tentative schedule indicating also the format of the workshop, e.g. sessions of invited or contributed talks, panels, workgroups, etc. All proposals should be submitted as PDF documents by email to the workshop and tutorial chair no later than Feb 15, 2009: Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: gerhard.kraetzschmar at fh-brs.de ------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP PROCEEDINGS AND TUTORIAL MATERIAL ------------------------------------------------- Tutorial and workshop material will be distributed on CDROM or USB stick to registered tutorial and workshop participants. All material must be supplied by the workshop/tutorial organizers to the Tutorials and Workshop Chair by the dates listed below. It is recommended that workshops use the same formats, instructions and means for preparing tutorial and workshop material as required by the main conference. ------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT DATES, WORKSHOP AND TUTORIAL PROGRAM ------------------------------------------------- Workshops: Proposal submission due date: Feb 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance: Mar 01, 2009 Final participants list due date: May 01, 2009 Camera-ready workshop paper submission: May 01, 2009 Workshop program: Jun 22-23, 2009 Tutorials; Proposal submission due date: Feb 15, 2009 Notification of acceptance: Mar 01, 2009 Camera-ready tutorial material submission: May 15, 2009 Tutorial program: Jun 22-23, 2009 ------------------------------------------------- FURTHER INFORMATION ------------------------------------------------- Inquiries may be sent by e-mail message to the workshop and tutorial chair: Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences E-Mail: gerhard.kraetzschmar at fh-brs.de Detailed information on the conference is available at the Conference web page: http://www.icar2009.org/ ------------------------------------------------- COMMITTEES ------------------------------------------------- * Honorary Chairs Rolf Dieter Schraft, Fraunhofer IPA Gerd Hirzinger, DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics * General Chair Erwin Prassler, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences * Program Chair Paolo Fiorini, Univ. of Verona * Workshop and Tutorial Chair Gerhard Kraetzschmar, Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences * Financial Chair Rainer Bischoff, KUKA Roboter GmbH * Publication Chair Martin H?gele, Fraunhofer IPA * Publicity Chair Monica Reggiani, Univ. of Padua * Industrial Liaison Chair Gisbert Lawitzky, Siemens AG * International Steering Committee J. Angeles (Canada) A.K. Bejczy (USA) Alicia Casals (Spain) Paulo Dario, University of Pisa (Italy) B. Espiau (France) George Giralt (France) J.O. Gray (UK) Gerd Hirzinger (Gemany) Oussama Khatib (USA) Giulio Sandini (Italy) Rolf Dieter Schraft (Gemany) Jon Trevelyan (UK) Y. Umetani (Japan) * Local Organizer Corinna Noltenius, GPS Gesellschaft f?r Produktionssysteme GmbH ------------------------------------------------- VENUE ------------------------------------------------- All sessions and activities of the ICAR 2009 will be held at the Munich Marriott Hotel, Berliner Strasse 93, Munich, Germany Best regards, Gerhard Kraetzschmar --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard K. Kraetzschmar Professor for Autonomous Systems Fon: +49-2241-865-293 Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University oAS Fax: +49-2241-865-8293 Computer Science Department Net: gerhard.kraetzschmar at fh-brs.de Grantham-Allee 20 Web: http://www.kraetzschmar.de/ 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany B-IT Bonn-Aachen International Center of Information Technology Net: gerhard.kraetzschmar at b-it-center.de --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From msh at aber.ac.uk Mon Feb 9 08:31:54 2009 From: msh at aber.ac.uk (Martin Huelse) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:31:54 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2 Vacancies in Robotics Research, Aberystwyth, UK Message-ID: <49905A7A.302@aber.ac.uk> 2 Vacancies in Robotics Research Research Associate vacancies in Developmental Robotics Robotics Research Group, Department of Computer Science, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK Applicants are invited to join the Robotics Laboratory for a new project (entitled IM-CLeVeR) on developmental robotic learning based on an iCub humanoid robot. This is a four year EC FP 7 funded project with 7 other partners across Europe: in Italy (2), Germany (1), Switzerland (1), the UK (2) and the USA (1). There will be 3 iCub humanoid robots purchased for the project and these will be based in Italy, Switzerland and Aberystwyth. Candidates should have good programming and software engineering skills, a strong interest in robotics research, and good analytical and communication skills. The senior post will require a PhD in a relevant field and will involve research into developmental techniques, both theory and implementation. The junior post will require proven experience of hardware and software systems and will be heavily involved with the construction, programming and support of the iCub robot. Salary: GBP 23,449 - 24,877 and GBP 23,449 - 32,458 (PostDoctoral) The Department and Robotics Group The Computer Science Department at Aberystwyth is a very successful department, being rated top in Wales in both teaching and research, and provides an attractive and lively working environment. In the recent government assessment exercise (RAE) our research quality was assessed as being the best in Wales and within the top band of Computer Science departments in the UK. For informal enquiries contact: Prof. Mark Lee, email: mhl at aber.ac.uk, phone: +44 (0)1970 622420 (direct). For further particulars and application forms see: http://www.aber.ac.uk/human-resources/en/vacancies-ext.shtml Ref: CS.09.03 The closing date for applications is 27th February 2009. These positions are available from May 2009 -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Martin Huelse, Dr. rer. nat. Intelligent Robotics Group email: msh at aber.ac.uk Department of Computer Science, web: aml.somebodyelse.de University of Wales, office: +44 (0)1970-62 2441 Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, SY23 3DB, lab: +44 (0)1970-62 2403 United Kingdom. fax: +44 (0)1970-62 8536 !!!!!!!! This event might be of particular interest to you !!!!!!!!!! International summer research camp on AUTONOMOUS INTELLIGENT ROBOTS Aberystwyth University, UK June 23rd to 30th 2009 http://users.aber.ac.uk/msh/AIR/ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------- From Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at Tue Feb 10 00:11:55 2009 From: Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at (Astrid.Weiss at sbg.ac.at) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:11:55 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: HRI 2009 Workshop on Societal Impact (Extended Deadline: 15th Febuary 2009) Message-ID: EXTENDED: CfP Deadline 15th February 2009! Workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/hri2009societal/ at ? 4th ACM/IEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction 2009 http://hri2009.org/ 10th of March 2009 San Diego, CA ?????????????????????? Call for Papers (apologies for multiple postings): ? The workshop on "Societal Impact: How Socially Accepted Robots Can be Integrated in our Society" will be held in San Diego, CA at the ACM/IEEE HRI2009 conference. This half-day workshop will discuss possible methodological approaches to evaluate social acceptance and societal impact of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) with a special focus on collaboration with robots. *Important dates* ? Submission of informal position papers (between 1 and max 4 pages):Sunday, 15th February 2009 Feedback to authors: Saturday, 28th February 2009 A special issue for the International Journal of Social Robotics is being planned for papers written based on abstracts submitted to the workshop. ? *Workshop topics* ? Submissions are invited addressing one or more of the following questions: 1. What kind of metrics already exist in the field of HRI for measuring social acceptance, like physiological measurements, behaviour observations, surveys etc.? 2. What are the pros and cons of existing evaluation methods and what are the innovations potentials toward other methods? 3. Do existing evaluation methods address needs for introducing robotic agents into "real life"? 4. How to support acceptance in Human-Robot Collaboration? 5. Which interdisciplinary approaches are used in HRI to address social acceptance and societal impact? 6. Which ethical issues should be concerned in the development of robotic agents, like legal aspects, psychological aspects etc. 7. How can the development of robotic agents be sustainable? 8. Which cultural differences exist in terms of societal impact on future Western and Asian societies? ? *Guidelines for submission* Workshop candidates should send a position paper (no longer than 4 A4 pages) before 15.02.2009 about a research or study they have been involved with (related to the topics described above) to astrid.weiss at sbg.ac.at. All position papers must be submitted in PDF format! *Organizing Committee* ? * Astrid Weiss, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Manfred Tscheligi, ICT&S Center - University of Salzburg, * Aude Billard, LASA Laboratory - EPFL Lausanne This workshop will be held as * Follow-up to the workshop "Robots as Social Actors: Evaluating Social Acceptance and Societal Impact of Robotic Agents" http://workshops.icts.sbg.ac.at/roman2008social/ which was held during IEEE Ro-Man 2008 and * In conjunction with the Workshop "Social Responsibility in HRI: Conducting our Research, Changing the World" http://www.rpi.edu/%7Efreien/hri2009workshop which will be held beforehand at this year's HRI conference. From AGoswami at hra.com Thu Feb 12 16:18:47 2009 From: AGoswami at hra.com (AGoswami at hra.com) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:18:47 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Honda Research Institute : Summer internship 2009 Message-ID: Hi Stefan: I'd appreciate if you could post the following message to robotics-worldwide. Thanks Ambarish ============================================================= Dear Professor: The computer science research section of Honda Research Institute USA, located in Mountain View, California and Cambridge, Massachusetts, has several openings for internships this summer. For details, please go to: http://www.honda-ri.com/HRI_Us/careers/internships The application deadline is March 31, 2009. Please circulate this information among your students. We appreciate your help. Sincerely, Kikuo Fujimura Honda Research Institute (HRI) ============================================================ From alex.farinelli at gmail.com Thu Feb 12 02:09:16 2009 From: alex.farinelli at gmail.com (Alessandro Farinelli) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:09:16 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ADAPT 2009 workshop at AAMAS: Deadline Extended to February 20th Message-ID: * ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * *ADAPT 2009 Workshop: Deadline Extended to February 20th Agent Design: Advancing from Theory to Practice AAMAS 2009 Web Site: http://nathanschurr.googlepages.com/motivation Submission deadline: February 20 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MOTIVATION* AAMAS is the premier international conference for both theoretical and applied agent-based research. However, in today's agents community, theory and practice seem to be walking separate paths with no clear feedback between the two. The ADAPT workshop hopes to bridge this gap by fostering an exchange where the lessons learned from taking theory to practice are used to understand the limitations of the theoretical models and the lessons learned directly from practice and used to discover the issues that theoretical models need to address. Over the last several years, members of the agents community have been involved with real-world systems in robotics, decision-support agents, personal-assistant agents in military, space and commercial domains. Many of the lessons learned from these endeavors involve the surprises, difficulties and flaws. These lessons are often not shared because they bring about questions for which an answer is not apparent. Nevertheless, it is important for our community to know and discuss these challenges if we are to produce the ideas and technology that are transformative and ultimately, utilized by practitioners. Some of these challenges may include: * Giving users a language to compactly communicate their problems; problem description * Translating a problem description into a chosen formalism; modeling * The lack of information to populate a model * The effects of bounded memory and processing on algorithms * Real-world communication channels * Communicating with a human user, e.g., giving instructions, receiving updates * Getting real information from the environment; sensing * User error or misinterpretation of instructions An important aspect of this workshop is not only to discuss these challenges, but also to develop directions for existing and new theoretical models so that algorithms and approaches that result can actually function in practice. *SHORT PAPER SUBMISSION* We are soliciting papers that discuss lessons learned from taking theory to practice or extracting lessons about theory from practice, particularly those that can identify issues with existing theoretical formulations or suggest new directions or approaches. Papers can be up to 5 single-spaced pages in standard LaTeX article format or Word with 1-inch margins in 12 point font. The papers will be reviewed by the Organizing Committee on the ability to further the goals and discussion that align with the motivation of the workshop. Position papers are also welcome. Please e-mail your submissions to by the deadline. *BEST PAPER AWARD * A best paper award will be chosen by the organizing committee. The winning authors will receive one free registration to the workshop. *PRESENTATIONS * All accepted papers will be invited to give short presentations on their experiences and ideas. In addition, we will have the following invited speakers: * *Nick Jennings*, University of Southampton * *Gal Kaminka*, Bar-Ilan University * *Pedro Szekely*, Information Sciences Institute * *Milind Tambe*, University of Southern California *DEADLINES * Submission: Feb 20, 2009 Notification: March 1, 2009 Camera-Ready: March 12, 2009 *ORGANIZING COMMITTEE * Rajiv Maheswaran Research Scientist, Information Sciences Institute Research Assistant Professor, Computer Science Department USC Viterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California E-mail: Nathan Schurr Human-Agent Collaboration Scientist Aptima, Inc. Email: Alessandro Farinelli Research Fellow, School of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton Email: From cmuhl at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de Thu Feb 12 09:31:20 2009 From: cmuhl at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de (Claudia Muhl) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:31:20 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] PhD- and Postdoctoral grants at CITEC, Bielefeld University Message-ID: *************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** The Graduate School Cognitive Interaction Technology at CITEC, Bielefeld University, Germany offers Research Grants for PhD Students and Postdoc Researchers *** Deadline for applications is March 22nd, 2009 *** The Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University, Germany has been established in the framework of the Excellence Initiative as a research center for intelligent systems and cognitive interaction between humans and technical systems. CITEC's focus is directed towards motion intelligence, attentive systems, situated communication, and memory and learning. Research and development are directed towards understanding the processes and functional constituents of cognitive interaction, and establishing cognitive interfaces that facilitate the use of complex technical systems. The Graduate School Cognitive Interaction Technology invites applications from outstanding young scientists, in the fields of robotics, computer science, biology, physics, sports sciences, linguistics or psychology, that are willing to contribute to the cross- disciplinary research agenda of CITEC. The international profile of CITEC fosters the exchange of researchers and students with related scientific institutions. For PhD students, a structured program including taught courses and time for individual research is offered. The integration and active participation in interdisciplinary research projects, which includes access to first class lab facilities, is facilitated by CITEC. For more information, please see: www.cit-ec.de . Successful candidates must hold an excellent academic degree (MSc/ Diploma/PhD) in a related discipline, have a strong interest in research, and be proficient in both written and spoken English. Research grants will be given for the duration of three years for PhD students, and one to three years for Postdocs. All applications should include: a cover letter indicating the motivation and research interests of the candidate, a CV including a list of publications, and relevant certificates of academic qualification. PhD applicants are asked to provide the outline of a PhD project (2-3 pages) and a short abstract. Postdoc researchers are asked to provide the outline of a research project (4-5 pages) relevant to CITEC's research objectives and a short abstract. It is obligatory for Postdoc applicants, and strongly recommended for PhD applicants, to provide two letters of recommendation. In the absence of letters of recommendation, PhD candidates should provide the names and contact details of two referees. All documentation should be submitted in electronic form. We strongly encourage candidates to contact our researchers, in advance of application, in order to develop project ideas. For a list of CITEC researchers please visit: www.cit-ec.de . Bielefeld University is an equal opportunity employer. Women are especially encouraged to apply and in the case of comparable competences and qualification, will be given preference. Bielefeld University explicitly encourages disabled people to apply. Applications will be considered until all positions have been filled. For guaranteed consideration, please submit your documents no later than March 22, 2009. Please address your application to Prof. Thomas Schack, Head of Graduate School, Email: gradschool at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de . Please direct any queries relating to your application to Claudia Muhl, Graduate School Manager, phone: +49-(0)521-106-6566, cmuhl at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de . -- ------------------------------------- Claudia Muhl Graduate School Manager Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology Bielefeld University Germany phone: +49 521-106-65 66 fax: +49 521-106-65 60 Universit?tsstr. 21-23 D-33615 Bielefeld email: cmuhl at cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de http://www.cit-ec.de ------------------------------------- From jmh at cs.utah.edu Thu Feb 12 07:21:41 2009 From: jmh at cs.utah.edu (John Hollerbach) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:21:41 -0700 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IJRR March 2009 Issue Message-ID: <49943E85.4000608@cs.utah.edu> A new issue of The International Journal of Robotics Research is available online: 1 March 2009; Vol. 28, No. 3 The below Table of Contents is available online at: http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/vol28/issue3/?etoc Robust Appearance Based Visual Route Following for Navigation in Large-scale Outdoor Environments Alan M. Zhang and Lindsay Kleeman The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 331-356 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/3/331 Decentralized, Adaptive Coverage Control for Networked Robots Mac Schwager, Daniela Rus, and Jean-Jacques Slotine The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 357-375 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/3/357 Model-based Decentralized Control of Time-delay Teleoperation Systems Ali Shahdi and Shahin Sirouspour The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 376-394 http://ijr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/3/376 A Review on the Dynamic Control of Parallel Kinematic Machines: Theory and Experiments Flavien Paccot, Nicolas Andreff, and Philippe Martinet The International Journal of Robotics Research 2009;28 395-416 From stevehcollins at gmail.com Thu Feb 12 04:26:35 2009 From: stevehcollins at gmail.com (Steve Collins) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:26:35 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Dynamic Walking 2009 Update Message-ID: The online abstract submission for Dynamic Walking 2009 is now open. The submission deadline for these single-page abstracts is March 1, 2009. Abstracts will be judged on both quality of research and relevance to dynamic walking. More details can be found under the Abstract Submission menu tab at www.dynamicwalking.org. Please subscribe to the newsletter on this page to receive regular meeting updates. Dynamic Walking 2009 will be held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, from June 8 to 11. The aim of this meeting, the fourth of an annual series, is to provide insight into the fundamental principles that underlie legged locomotion. Topics central to dynamic walking include energetics, stability, predictive principles and models, dynamic modeling, empirical data with a conceptual tie-in, and robot successes and failures. The dynamic walking approach puts less emphasis on vision, navigation, motion planning, kinematic data, kinematic control, and measurements that do not address a basic concept or principle. Participants are split roughly equally between students and professors, and between researchers studying human walking and those designing better walking robots. To promote open sharing of information, the meetings are organized to provide as much interaction between participants as possible. The format is highly informal and fluid, with a single-track of presentations and extensive time scheduled for interaction, brainstorming and idea sharing. Each day includes an enjoyable and hands-on tutorial, on topics such as techniques for simulating dynamic walking and the construction and testing of dynamic walking robots. Registration and lodging costs will also be posted to the website by March 1, 2009. We are aiming to substantially offset conference costs for student and postdoc attendees. While the final costs are still to be determined, we anticipate that registration, food and lodging costs will be about $1,000 CDN for regular attendees and $650 CDN for postdocs and students. The lodging will be mainly townhouse-style shared accommodation located on campus and within close walking distance to the meeting site. FEATURED SPEAKERS Chris Atkeson, Carnegie Mellon University Hugh Herr, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Art Kuo, University of Michigan Tad McGeer, Aerovel Corporation David Reinkensmeyer, University of California at Irvine Andy Ruina, Cornell University Russ Tedrake, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Martijn Wisse, Delft University of Technology ORGANIZERS Max Donelan, Simon Fraser University Steve Collins, Delft University of Technology From kaspers at mmmi.sdu.dk Tue Feb 10 07:28:06 2009 From: kaspers at mmmi.sdu.dk (Kasper Stoy) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:28:06 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ROBOCOMM 2009 - Call for Participation Message-ID: <49919D06.5040004@mmmi.sdu.dk> OBOCOMM 2009 - Call for Participation ====================================================================== 31 March -- 2 April 2009, Odense, Denmark Early registration: 1 March 2009 Late registration: 22 March 2009 Information and on-line registration: http://www.robocomm.org ======================================================================== Description: ------------------ The Second International Conference on Robot Communication and Coordination targets the convergence of robotics and communications, acting as a common forum for the two communities. The event will promote cross-pollination of these two areas, adding to our understanding of the interaction between these two exciting computer science research areas. Robotics is an interdisciplinary field, having benefited greatly from interactions with mechanics, control theory, and electronics. Lately, with the unprecedented growth of wireless communication technologies, the growing attention devoted to sensor networks and ad-hoc networks, and the emergence of commodity robotics platforms, networked robotics represents an exciting new research direction. Networked robotics offers a framework for coordination of complex mobile systems, thus providing the natural common ground for convergence of information processing, communication theory and control theory. It poses significant challenges, requiring the integration of communication theory, software engineering, distributed sens- ing and control into a common framework. Furthermore, robots are unique in that their motion and tasking control systems are co-located with the communications mechanisms. This allows the co-exploitation of individual subsystems to provide completely new kinds of networked or distributed autonomy. Topics of Interest: -------------------------- ROBOCOMM is a leading-edge conference where prominent researchers with different backgrounds can ex- change ideas for a common framework that will enable new applications based on large scale networks of mobile or modular robots. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: ? Robotic interactions with sensors ? Communication protocols for tele-operated and tele-reflexive robots ? Intra-sensor communications within individual robots ? Communication protocols for flocks and swarms of networked robots ? Distributed coordination of modular robots or mobile robots ? Situated and embodied communication ? Biologically-inspired or biomimetic robot communication ? Exploiting the interactions between communications and autonomy ? Localization and tracking using robotic communications ? Industrial applications of networked robotics ? Real-time software for robot teams or modular robots ? Wired networking for robots ? Advanced communication systems for single tele-operated robots Proceedings: ------------------ The proceedings will be published by IEEE through their digital library (IEEExplore). Tutorials: --------------- Two tutorials entitled ?Building Ubiquitous Robot Systems: A hands-on tutorial? and ?Introduction to Spatial Com- puting? will be held on Tuesday 31 April. Conference Facilities: ------------------------------ The conference will take place in modern conference facilities located at the University of Southern Denmark. The university is on the outskirts of Odense, which is the 4th largest town in Denmark and the birthplace of the fairytale-writer H.C. Andersen. Kasper Stoy General Co-Chair, ROBOCOMM 2009 From samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch Tue Feb 10 14:15:48 2009 From: samir.bouabdallah at mavt.ethz.ch (Bouabdallah Samir) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:15:48 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline extension for UAV'09 Conference to March 02. Message-ID: <20B3DFB65FB4244A869D91798B18FC9002C8C139@EX2.d.ethz.ch> Dear colleagues, Please note the EXTENSION of the deadline for submission of full papers to UAV'09 to March 02. The website was updated with the final list of keynote speakers: http://www.uavconferences.com Please find the CFP of the UAV'09 in: http://www.uavconferences.com/UAV09_CFP.pdf INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES, June 8-10, 2009 - RENO, NEVADA, USA. IMPORTANT DATES: March 02, 2009: Full papers, due. April 5, 2009: Notification of acceptance / rejection. April 30, 2009: Final paper and power point presentation, due. Best regards, __________________________ Dr. Samir Bouabdallah Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Zentrum, Tannenstrasse 3 Office: CLA E 16.2 CH-8092 Z?rich, e-mail: samir.bouabdallah at ieee.org Phone: +41 44 632 89 06 Fax: +41 44 632 11 81 ___________________________ Project Leader of: http://www.mufly.org Co-chair of IEEE TC on Aerial Robotics: http://www.flyingrobots.org/ Spin-off: http://www.skybotix.com From bowling at uta.edu Wed Feb 11 21:52:28 2009 From: bowling at uta.edu (Bowling, Alan) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:52:28 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Workshop on Robotics and Automation in Assistive Living Systems (PETRA'09) Message-ID: CALL FOR PAPERS Deadline March 9th 2009! Workshop on "Robotics and Automation in Assistive Living Systems" The 2nd International Conference on Pervasive Technologies Related to Assistive environments http://www.petrae.org/ June 9-13, 2009 Corfu, Greece *Overview* The quality of life of an elderly person can be improved by allowing them to continue living as independently as possible in their own home or apartment. However, some people require assistance in order to maintain some level of autonomy. Assistive living systems are being developed for this purpose and they may consist of a monitoring system, composed of sensors embedded in the environment and computers with programmed logic for identifying events, and a response system, which can include robots to affect or alter the environment. A synergy can be realized as the system, staff, and patient work together to improve the patient's quality of life. This can be achieved to a greater extent if robots are included in the assistive living system. The system's operations involve the use of robot(s) and automation to alter or collect information from the environment when the humans are unable to help themselves or unaware that they need assistance, as in emergencies. However, even mundane situations are considered where robotics and automation can be used to simply make the human more comfortable in their environment. These scenarios can be addressed quickly by robot(s) and/or automation stationed within the home, as opposed to having the system call someone for help. *Workshop topics* The key aspect of this workshop is that the robot(s) and/or automation physically interact with the environment in order to alter it or collect information from it; the robots/automation act as the assistive living system's effectors for manipulating the environment. Within this context, submissions are invited which address any aspect of robotics in assistive environments including: Wearable robots Portable and light weight robots Human-robot interaction Telepresence Service robots Robots as sensors Way-finding robots Mobile robotic guides and RFID Robot assistant for the visually impaired Agile pet robots Robot-assisted emergency response Home automation Helper robots Robot companions Socially assistive robots Socially intelligent robots Physically and psychologically supportive robots Expressive robots Mobile manipulation Robot-assisted surveillance Robot feeding aids User-centered robot design Robot-assisted nurse training Expressive robots Human-aware robots Climbing and walking robots in assistive environments Robot team interaction related to assistive environments *Important dates* Submission of papers: Monday March 9, 2009. Feedback to authors: Monday April 6, 2009. *Guidelines for submission* Workshop candidates should send a short (4 pages) or long paper (6 pages) in .pdf format and submit it using the conference submission system. *Organizing Committee* * Alan Bowling, Robotics and Dynamic Systems Laboratory - The University of Texas at Arlington * Panayiotis Shiakolas, Manufacturing Automation and Robotic Systems Laboratory - The University of Texas at Arlington * Manfred Huber, AI and Robotics Laboratory - The University of Texas at Arlington From vkrovi at eng.buffalo.edu Tue Feb 10 02:06:54 2009 From: vkrovi at eng.buffalo.edu (Venkat N. Krovi) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:06:54 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Submission Deadline Updated for IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics Focused Section on Anthropomorphism Message-ID: IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (TMECH) ** *Call for Papers* *Focused Section on Anthropomorphism in Mechatronic Systems* ** Anthropomorphism has served as a useful guiding principle for design and control of robotic systems in man's pursuit of "making a machine in his own image". The renewed interest in recent years arises from the need to develop human-like robotic and mechatronic systems (and subsystems) to operate, interact with and cohabit in human built-environments. >From a morphological perspective, numerous novel designs have been proposed ranging from prosthetic/robotic hands, for performing dextrous grasping and manipulatory tasks, to lower-limb exoskeletons/ walking robots, for enabling ambulation in our homes and the outdoors. From a social perspective, the new generation of robots participate in social interactions with humans, taking and giving verbal and non-verbal cues, and sensing or appropriately evoking human emotional and affective states. This new generation of anthropomorphic mechatronic systems (and subsystems) has capitalized on advances in miniaturization of sensing/actuation and the ongoing revolutions in embedded computation and wireless communication. This Focused Section of the IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (TMECH) is dedicated to the new advances in modeling, design, analysis, control, implementation and validation of such anthropomorphic mechatronic systems being developed as we pursue the dream of reaching the level of mobility, manipulation, fluidity and expressivity of humans. Multidisciplinary papers combining Robotics and Life Sciences (e.g., biomechanical modeling, computational neuroscience) are encouraged. The papers should contain both the theoretical and practical/experimental results and are subject to the TMECH review procedures. Potential topics include but are not limited to: ? State-of-art research and technological development survey in the field ? Issues in anthropomorphic system design and promising solutions ? Conceptual and algorithmic contributions to understanding human motion ? Enabling sensor/actuator/computational technologies ? Experimental results from prototype and fielded systems ? Exoskeletons/Prosthetics/Walking robots ? Facially Expressive and Gestural Robots ? Emulation of the human subsystems (sensory, musculoskeletal etc.) *Manuscript Submission* Please submit the manuscripts in PDF format to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tmech-ieee, and indicate on your cover letter that *"This paper is submitted for possible publication in the Focused Section on Anthropomorphism in Mechatronics Systems." *Instructions for authors are available online at: http://www.ieee-asme-mechatronics.org. If you have any questions relating to this Focused Section, please email one of the guest editors. *Important Dates: * *February 15, 2009 Paper Submission * *March 1, 2009 Paper Submission (Revised Paper Submission Deadline!!!)* May 15, 2009 Completion of First Review July 15, 2009 Submission of Revised Paper September 1, 2009 Completion of Final Review September 15, 2009 Submission of Final Manuscripts and Copyright Forms December 2009 Publication *Guest Editors* *Venkat Krovi* Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering SUNY Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260 E-mail: vkrovi at eng.buffalo.edu *Jean-Paul Laumond* Directeur de Recherche LAAS-CNRS Toulouse, France E-mail: jpl at laas.fr *Michael Goldfarb* Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN E-mail: michael.goldfarb at vanderbilt.edu *Shigeki Sugano* Dept. of Mech.Engg. School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, Japan Email: sugano at waseda.jp * * * * -- Venkat N. Krovi Associate Professor Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering State University of New York at Buffalo Office: 1012 Furnas Hall Mailing Address: Tel: (716) 645-2593 x2264 318 Jarvis Hall Fax: (716) 645-3668 MAE Department E-mail: vkrovi at eng.buffalo.edu University at Buffalo (SUNY) http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/~vkrovi Buffalo, NY 14260 LAB: http://mechatronics.eng.buffalo.edu From Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com Thu Feb 12 05:48:01 2009 From: Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com (Ditzinger, Thomas, Springer DE) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:48:01 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robotics Handbook Wins "Oscar of Scientifc Publishing" Message-ID: <6AE6FF8C5284D344940E31CCA688E87001F5D511@HDEXS1.springer-sbm.com> we are very proud and happy to announce that the "Springer Handbook of Robotics", edited by Bruno Siciliano and Oussama Khatib, has won two PROSE Awards presented by the American Association of Publishers, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division. On February 5th, in Washington, D.C., less than 9 months after its publication, the Handbook was recognized with the PROSE Award in the Engineering & Technology Category, as well as with the Award for Excellence in the overall Physical Sciences & Mathematics Category . This awards recognize the efforts all the editors, part editors and authors have devoted to this challenge, with their contributions, commitment and passion and can be well seen as a tribute to Robotics as an established scientific field. The Handbook also was the Springer bestselling title in engineering in 2008. With the very best wishes Thomas Ditzinger ================================================================ Dr. Thomas Ditzinger, Senior Editor, Engineering/Applied Sciences Springer-Verlag, Tiergartenstr. 17, D-69121 Heidelberg, Germany Phone: +49-6221-487 8623, Fax: +49-6221-4876 8623, Skype: tditzinger, http://www.springer.com mailto:Thomas.Ditzinger at springer.com ================================================================ From jpratt at ihmc.us Fri Feb 13 12:19:37 2009 From: jpratt at ihmc.us (Jerry Pratt) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:19:37 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Summer 2009 Internships on Humanoid Walking and Exoskeletons at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition Message-ID: <006701c98e18$66b75520$3425ff60$@us> The Institute for Human and Machine Cognition has a couple internships available for the summer of 2009 on the development of Humanoid Walking algorithms and mechanical design of robots and exoskeletons. Please see http://www.ihmc.us/~jpratt/hiring.html for more information. Please spread this message to students and colleagues who may be interested that are not on this mailing list. Thanks, Jerry Pratt Research Scientist Institute for Human and Machine Cognition From jacky at cs.umanitoba.ca Fri Feb 13 16:27:42 2009 From: jacky at cs.umanitoba.ca (Jacky Baltes) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:27:42 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Deadline for Int. Conf. of Advanced Humanoid Robotics Research (ICAHRR) 2009: March 1st Message-ID: Hi, apologies if you received the following CFP more than once. nternational Conference on Advanced Humanoid Robotics Research (ICAHRR-09) Incheon, Korea August 16-18, 2009 Call For Papers OBJECTIVES The goal of this conference is to bring together researchers from all areas of humanoid robotics to explore new frontiers for humanoid robots, a very active and important research area within robotics. To date most work in this area has focused on the generation of basic walking gaits for flat terrains, but recent advances have led to novel research opportunities and directions. While walking is obviously a core competency for a humanoid robots, and a skill on which more challenging behaviours are based, it is still a simple task when compared to the full range of motions that a human can easily generate and control. To develop humanoid robots that can have a significant impact on our society, such as robotic nurses or firemen, a humanoid robot must have numerous skills. These include being able to actively balance on uneven surfaces (e.g., move through grass as well as gravel roads), plan complex motions (e.g., pick up dirty laundry from underneath the bed), and interact with other robots or humans (e.g., move furniture). The conference provides researchers with an opportunity to present active developments in these and related areas, and to develop directions for future research. TOPICS OF INTEREST We solicit original, unpublished research in all areas of humanoid robotics, especially those outlined above. Major areas of interest are: - Adaptive and Intelligent Control - Trajectory Planning - Walking Gait Generation - Complex Motion Planning - Human-Robot Interaction - Simulation of Humanoid Robots - Sensing and Perception of Unstructured Environments - Computer Vision for Humanoid Robots - Multi-Robot Coordination and Communication - Machine Learning - Applications for Humanoid Robots in Society - Societal Issues related to Humanoid Robots Proceedings will be published by Springer and exceptional papers will be considered for publication in The International Journal of Social Robotics. PAPER SUMMISSION Authors are invited to submit the complete manuscripts in PDF format. Submissions should be as per the LaTex or Word templates. Manuscripts are limited to six (6) A4 size papers. The front page must contain the title of the paper, full name(s) and address(es) of the author(s) and the appropriate academic field(s). The complete mailing address(es), telephone number(s), FAX number(s) and email address(es) must be provided on a separate sheet. All papers will be refereed by the program committee. IMPORTANT DATES - INVITED SESSION PROPOSAL SUBMISSION: March 1, 2009 - CONFERENCE/INVITED SESSION PAPER SUBMISSION: March 1, 2009 - NOTIFICATION TO AUTHORS: April 30, 2009 - FINAL CAMERA-READY MANUSCRIPT: May 30, 2009 WEBSITE Submission and general information will be available at: http://www.fira.net VENUE Incheon is the 3rd largest city in Korea with population 2,700,000 people. It is the gateway city of Korea, with Incheon International Airport and seaport located about 28km from Seoul. The city is near the west sea and has many beautiful sites to visit. The Global Fair and Festival 2009 will be held along with FIRA. For more information please visit http://english.incheon.go.kr RELATED EVENTS 14th FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Korea, 16-18 August, 2009 14th FIRA RoboWorld Cup 2009 Korea, 18-20 August, 2009 Global Fair and Festival 2009, Incheon, Korea, 7 August-25 October, 2009 Honorary Chair Jong-Hwan Kim KAIST, Korea FIRA Steering Committee Chair Shuzhi Sam Ge The National University of Singapore, Singapore FIRA Congress Program Chair Prahlad Vadakkepat, Singapore General Chair Jacky Baltes University of Manitoba, Canada Program Chair John Anderson University of Manitoba, Canada Vice Chair: Invited/Special Sessions Kuo-Yang Tu NKFUST Taiwan Program Committee Guido Buckman, U. Plymouth, UK Zaki Byagowi, Gilan U, Iran Thomas Braunl, U. Western Australia, Australia Chung-Hsien Guo, NTUST,Taiwan Dennis Hong, Virginia Tech, USA Pasan Kulvanit, King Mongkut's U., Thailand Jean-Claude Latombe, Stanford, USA Adalberto Llarena, UNAM, Mexico Bruce McDonald, U. Auckland, NZ Chris Messom, Massey U., Albany, NZ Norbert Meyer, U. Osaka, Japan Asad Norouzi, Chalmers U., Sweden Paul Oh, Drexel U., USA Nadir Ould-Khessal, Okanagan C., Canada Simon Parsons, CUNY, USA Heinz Ulbrich, TU Munich, Germany Changjiu Zhou, Singapore Polytechnic Publicity Chair Adalberto Llarena (S. America) Simon Parsons (N. America) Heinz Ulbrich (Europe) Zaki Byagowi (Middle East) Changjiu Zhou (Southeast Asia) Norbert Meyer (Japan) Finance Chair Hyun-Myung, KR Local Arrangement Chair Yeon-Chan Hong, KR Contact ICAHRR09 at CS.UMANITOBA.CA Christine Kim office at fira.net Chen Xiangyu firacongress at gmail.com HOSTS & ORGINAZERS FIRA RoboWorld Congress is hosted by FIRA and Incheon Metropolitan City and organized by FIRA Korea and Incheon information Technology Industry Promotion Agency -- Prof. Jacky Baltes, EITC E2-402 Department of Computer Science, University of Manitoba Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada R3T 2N2 VoIP: +1 (310) 961-2209, Fax: +1 (204) 474-7609 Email: jacky (AT) cs.umanitoba.ca http://aalab.cs.umanitoba.ca Gizmo: jacky_baltes From james.morrison at kaist.edu Fri Feb 13 19:49:20 2009 From: james.morrison at kaist.edu (James Morrison) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:49:20 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE CASE 2009: Submission deadline extended to March 1, 2009 Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The IEEE CASE 2009 submission deadline for contributed papers has been extended to March 1, 2009. The call for papers is available from the conference website ( http://www.ieee-case.org) and the website for the IEEE Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation ( http://xs3d.kaist.edu/TC-SMA/Docs/new-IEEE_CASE_2009-CFP.pdf). Here are a few details about the conference (more information is attached below and can be found on the conference website): Dates: August 22-25, 2009 Location: Bangalore, India Extended Contributed Paper Submission Deadline: March 1, 2009 Webpage:http://www.ieee-case.org I hope to see you there! Best regards, Jim ===========================================================================?== James R. Morrison, Ph.D. Assistant Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, KAIST, South Korea Co-chair of the IEEE RAS Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation ===========================================================================?== E-mail: james.morri... at kaist.edu, TEL: +82-42-350-3127 xS3D Lab homepage:http://xs3d.kaist.edu IEEE Technical Committee on Semiconductor Manufacturing Automation: http://xs3d.kaist.edu/TC-SMA ===========================================================================?== ...........................................................................?. 2009 IEEE CONFERENCE ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING August 22-25, 2009 Bangalore, India Sponsored by IEEE Robotics and Automation Societyhttp://www.ieee-case.org We are delighted to inform you that the fifth annual IEEE Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE 2009), sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, will be held from August 22 to 25, 2009, in Bangalore, India. IEEE CASE is the primary forum for cross-industry research in automation. The goal of this conference is to provide a broad, high quality coverage and dissemination of foundational research on "automation" among academicians, researchers, and industry practitioners. The focus is on scientific methods for automated machines and systems operating in structured environments over long periods, and also on the explicit structuring of environments. CASE is an offspring of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, IEEE T-ASE (www.ieee.org/t-ase). High quality CASE papers will be recommended for publication in this flagship automation journal. ...........................................................................?. TECHNICAL PROGRAM The technical program of IEEE CASE will consist of workshops, tutorials, special sessions, plenary talks, paper presentations, and posters. The program is broadly structured into the following six tracks: - Foundations of Automation - Knowledge Sciences and Automation - Sensors and Sensor Networks - Manufacturing, Logistics and Supply Chain Automation - Life Sciences and Health Care Automation - Meso, Micro and Nano-Scale Automation Submitted papers must describe original work, in the form of modeling abstractions, algorithms, theoretical analysis or case studies, and they can cover, but are not limited to, the following areas: Laboratory Automation Automation in Treatment Diagnosis and Disease Workflow Modeling, Analysis and Management in Health-Care Hospital and Medical Robotics Web, Data and Text Mining Internet and Data Analytics Intelligent Search Predictive Intelligence Web-based Automation and Workflow Management Systems E-commerce, E-markets and E-procurement Auctions and Mechanism Design Dynamic Pricing and Network Economics Services Science and Engineering Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures Information and Homeland Security Machine Learning Multi-Agent Systems and Distributed Control Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems Industrial Robotics and Automation Material Handling Automation Automation in Green Technologies and Reverse Logistics Automation in Logistics and Supply Chain Management Automation in Product Life Cycle Management Algorithmic Automation Discrete-Event and Hybrid Systems Performance-Modeling Approaches in Automation Planning, Coordination and Scheduling Software Engineering in Automation Image Processing and Vision-based Automation Sensory Data Fusion Diagnostics and Prognostics Optimized Configuration of Sensor Systems Resource Allocation and Management in Sensor Systems ............................................................. SUBMISSIONS AND IMPORTANT DATES Paper Submissions: Author(s) should submit full papers electronically in double column IEEE-compliant PDF format. All papers will be peer- reviewed. Detailed instructions for paper preparation and submission will be available on the conference web site:http://www.ieee-case.org. Important Dates: February 15, 2009 : Submission of Proposals for Special Sessions March 1, 2009 : Submission of Proposals for Tutorials and Workshops March 1, 2009 : Submission of contributed papers March 15, 2009 : Submission of Papers/Extended Abstracts for Accepted Special Sessions May 15, 2009 : Paper acceptance notification May 30, 2009 : Conference Registration Opens June 15, 2009 : Final paper submission due ............................................................... VENUE AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS The conference will be held in Hotel Grand Ashok, one of Bangalore's best hotels. Bangalore is a leading hub of India's modern economy and a primary base for many global companies, especially in the IT sector. It is also the home for many of India's premier research institutions, including the Indian Institute of Science and numerous research labs of the government and global companies. Bangalore is distinguished by its salubrious weather and by a colorful and attractive lifestyle that results from the seamless blending of the old and the modern Indian cultures. A Tour of Infosys Technologies, India's leading IT Company is being organized on August 25, 2009. A Complimentary Tour of Mysore (a city of magnificent palaces, temples, and architectural marvels) is also being arranged. A cultural program featuring one of India's best troupes of classic music and dance will be a part of the conference program. From haoyong.yu at robotics.sg Sun Feb 15 04:30:34 2009 From: haoyong.yu at robotics.sg (haoyong.yu at robotics.sg) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:30:34 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICIRA2009 Second Call for Papers Message-ID: <20090215203034.tmscj6z1ck8sw4o8@webmail.robotics.sg> ICIRA2009: Second International Conference on Intelligent Robotics and Applications 16-18 December 2009 Singapore Dear Colleagues, The ICIRA2009 is now inviting contributors to submit full papers through the online submission system. The paper submission deadline is 15 June 2009. The emphasis of this year?s conference is on ?Robot intelligence for achieving digital manufacturing and intelligent automations?. And, we have the following confirmed keynote speakers: 1. Professor Sadayuki Tsugawa, Meijo University, Japan 2. Dr. Zhengyou Zhang, Microsoft Research, USA 3. Dr. Yongkiang Koh, ST Kinetics Ltd, Singapore ICIRA conference series will publish the conference proceedings in the Springer?s Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence/Computer Science. All published papers will be indexed in EI. For more details, please visit: http://icira2009.robotics.sg We are looking forward to meeting you in ICIRA2009 to be held in Singapore. Warmest Regards General Chairs: Ming Xie, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Youlun Xiong, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, China Program Chairs: Caihua Xiong, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, P. R. China Honghai Liu, University of Portsmouth, UK Zhencheng Hu, Kumamoto University, Japan Conference Website: http://icira2009.robotics.sg From icratravelgrant at gmail.com Sun Feb 15 15:59:10 2009 From: icratravelgrant at gmail.com (ICRA Travel Grant Committee) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:59:10 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA 2009 Travel Grant for US Students and Postdocs Message-ID: ICRA Travel Grant for US Students and Postdoctoral Fellows [Note: this grant opportunity is now open to postdoctoral fellows.] Application Deadline: 02/20/2009 A proposal has been submitted to the US National Science Foundation to support travel for US students and postdocs to the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. In anticipation of funding, students and postdocs who are US citizens or permanent residents, and who are planning to present their work at ICRA 2009, are invited to apply for a travel grant. This grant will cover partial airfare reimbursement for coach/economy class on US flag carriers only. The deadline for submitting an application is 02/20/2009, and awards will be announced by 03/09/2009. To encourage applicants to take advantage of their time in Japan to visit universities and research labs, awardees will also be eligible to receive supplemental funding to help cover the travel and lodging expenses of visiting these labs, up to $250 for each day spent visiting labs outside of ICRA (maximum of $500). Travel proposals are more likely to be considered favorably if (a) the applicant plans to visit labs outside of ICRA and (b) the applicant's home lab willing to reciprocate by hosting visitors from Japan in future. (There is no financial commitment for hosting future visitors.) Travel funds will be distributed as reimbursements upon submission of receipts and a brief trip report after the conference. To assist in the planning of visits to research labs, a partial list of Japanese labs accepting visitors is posted here: http://sites.google.com/site/icratravelgrant/a-partial-list-of-labs-hosting-student-visits. Applicants are encouraged to seek out other labs appropriate to their research. The goal of this travel grant program is to help awardees make the most of their time in Japan, and to encourage future contact, collaboration, and possibly participation in study-abroad programs in Japan such as NSF pre-doctoral research enhancement programs, NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes for graduate students, and postdoctoral fellowships. Travel grant awardees and their Japanese counterparts will also participate in an orientation and social event at ICRA. For information on applying for the travel grant, go to http://sites.google.com/site/icratravelgrant/ -- ICRA US Travel Grant Committee From doetomo at unimelb.edu.au Sun Feb 15 20:33:05 2009 From: doetomo at unimelb.edu.au (Denny Oetomo) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:33:05 +1100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA workshop on Agricultural Robotics References: Message-ID: Call for Participation ICRA WORKSHOP ON AGRICULTURAL ROBOTICS TITLE Autonomous Agriculture TIME Wednesday, May 13 2009, 9:00-12:00, Half-day Workshop VENUE Room 401, Session WW-H1. SPEAKERS Professor Noboru NOGUCHI, Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, JAPAN Dr Roland Lenain, CEMAGREF, FRANCE Professor Sanjiv Singh, Carnegie Mellon University, USA Dr Satoru Sakai, Chiba University, JAPAN Xavier Paolo Burgos-Artizzu, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Madrid, Spain ABSTRACT Automation is one of the most significant factors in the improvement of farming efficiency. At present, the maturing technologies within the robotics community pave the way for the exciting deployment of robust robotics systems in the semi-structured environment of large scale farming. This has the potential to increase productivity and the quality of agricultural facilities. The way farming the industry in general is modeled and executed may also be drastically modified. The autonomous operation of agricultural activities is discussed in this workshop, critically explored through the presentation of the new technologies available today. After a successful workshop in ICRA 2008, the IEEE RAS Technical Committee is proposing to organize another workshop at ICRA 2009, inviting a new set of speakers to present their work. While the presenters in the last workshop came mostly from the US and Australia (and just one presenter from Japan), the Technical Committee is seeking to widen its network by inviting more participation from Europe and Japan for this round of the workshop. This session is proposed as a half-day workshop at ICRA 2009. MOTIVATIONS AND OBJECTIVES * To present the concept of autonomous agriculture through the robust application of robotics and automation strategies. * To generate awareness and interest on the role and impact of robotics and automation in agricultural applications. * To present state-of-the-art technology in autonomous systems deployed on the agricultural tasks. List of topics TOPICS Topics of the workshop is focused on the technical concept and realization of autonomous agriculture, which can be focused on (but not limited to): * Modeling, planning, sensing, and control of autonomous field robots * Robots for automated inspection and handling of farm produce * Methods of sensing, identification, and localisation in the semi-structured farming environment * Strategies for effective human-machine coordination and cooperation in farming tasks * Algorithm for efficient interaction between the systems and the environment * Other novel ideas, concepts, applications that would be of significant contribution to the field of autonomous agriculture CONTACTS To ATTEND the workshop, go to: http://www.icra2009.org/program/tutorial-workshop.html Contact for Session organizers: Professor John Billingsley Faculty of Engineering & Surveying Mechanical & Mechatronic Engineering, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba Qld 4350Australia Phone: + 61 7 4631 2513Email: billings at usq.edu.au Dr Denny Oetomo, Department of Mechanical Engineering The University of Melbourne VIC 3010 Australia Tel: +61 3 8344 6795 Fax: +61 3 9347 8784 Email: doetomo at unimelb.edu.au From agrawal at UDel.Edu Mon Feb 16 07:06:02 2009 From: agrawal at UDel.Edu (Sunil K. Agrawal) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:06:02 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Openings for robotics Post Docs/Graduate Students for World Class University Project .... Message-ID: <499980DA.4080909@udel.edu> We have multiple openings immediately within a World Class University Project at Hanyang University (Korea). The candidates will be jointly supervised by Prof. Sunil K. Agrawal (University of Delaware, webpage: http://mechsys4.me.udel.edu) and Prof. G. J. Park (Hanyang University, webpage: http://adl.hanyang.ac.kr). The projects include novel aspects of control and design of mechanical and structural systems including rehabilitation robots, flapping wing flying robots, mobile vehicles, and others. Please send your letters of interest, CV, and dates of availability to Sunil K. Arawal (agrawal at udel.edu) and Prof. G. J. Park (gjpark at hanyang.ac.kr). -- Sunil K. Agrawal, PhD Professor of Mechanical Engineering University of Delaware Newark, DE 19716 Phone: (302) 831-8049 Email: agrawal at udel.edu http://mechsys4.me.udel.edu From rsiegwart at ethz.ch Mon Feb 16 09:58:45 2009 From: rsiegwart at ethz.ch (Siegwart Roland) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:58:45 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] =?iso-8859-1?q?ETH_Z=FCrich_-_New_Master_Pro?= =?iso-8859-1?q?gramme_in_Robotics=2C_Systems_and_Control?= Message-ID: *************************************************** ETH Zurich - New Master Program in Robotics, Systems and Control *************************************************** Starting Fall 2009, ETH Z?rich offers a new Master Program in "Robotics, Systems and Control". The Master in Robotics, Systems and Control is a specialized program open to students seeking an outstanding education at the interface between mechanical and electrical engineering, and computer science. Bridging the gap between the engineering disciplines, our program offers students a unique learning environment and a multidisciplinary education that will enable them to develop innovative and intelligent products and systems to meet today's most pressing challenges: energy supply, the environment, health care and mobility. During the last years, ETH Zurich established one of the worldwide leading competence centers in the field of robotics, systems and control. The program is run by ten internationally highly respected professor covering research activities ranging from fundamental theory in modeling, control, artificial intelligence and signal processing to challenging applications in biomedical and rehabilitation engineering, power systems, automotive and aircrafts, space and micro-robots, air traffic management, home robots and much more. More Details on the program and application can be found on: http://www.master-robotics.ethz.ch/ The deadline for applications is: March 15, 2009 Sincerely Prof. Dr. Roland Siegwart Autonomous Systems Lab Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems ETH Z?rich, CLA E 33 Tannenstrasse 3 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Office: +41 44 632 23 58 Fax: +41 86 079 214 49 27 Mobile: +41 79 214 49 27 E-Mail: rsiegwart at ethz.ch WWW: www.asl.ethz.ch ******************************************** International Symposium on Robotics Research ISRR 2009 - http://www.isrr2009.ethz.ch ******************************************** From k_schi at t-online.de Tue Feb 17 00:50:44 2009 From: k_schi at t-online.de (Schilling,Klaus) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:50:44 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Aerospace Tele-Robotics Professor Position (tenured) Message-ID: <499A7A64.1010802@informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de> At the Institute for Computer Science of the Julius-Maximilians- University Wuerzburg the following Telematics (= telecommunications + automation + informatics) or Tele-Robotics position is available from 1. April 2009 (application deadline 15. April 2009): W2-Professor on ?Telematics? or "Tele-Robotics" (tenure track) We search for this associate professor position a well recognized researcher with aerospace background. The research emphasis should be in areas like ? telemetry and telecommand, telematic methods and hardware, ? advanced telecommunication systems, fault-tolerant and self-organizing networks, ? supervisory control, remote control, ? ground control operations, telecommunication hardware, quality of service / experience Interdisciplinary cooperations between Computer Science, Physics and Engineering should be supported. Emphasis in teaching will concern lectures on telematics, aerospace systems, remote control systems, laboratories and hardware practicals in these fields. This position will be affiliated with chair Informatics VII: robotics and telematics. Excellent infrastructure for research is available and advantage can be taken from the "center for telematics" in W?rzburg. For this position the lectures will be related to the program ?Aerospace informatics? (Bachelor) (http://www.luft-und-raumfahrt.informatik.uni-wuerzburg.de), the international ?SpaceMaster? (Master) (www.spacemaster.uni-wuerzburg.de) and SpaceMathematics (Master), as well as to Computer Sciences. The classes can be offered in English language. An active support and cooperation in planned and existing graduate programs is expected. Prerequisites are pedagogical skills, completed university studies, PhD, and Habilitation or similar level research results (achieved as junior professor or at positions outside academia). At appointment the age of 52 years should not be completed (exceptions in urgent cases are possible according to Art. 10 Abs. 3 Satz 2 BayHSchPG). The university wants to increase the percentage of female faculty and encourages applications of women. Disabled persons will be prefered at equal skill level. Applications with the usual documents (curriculum vitae, copies of certificates, list of publications, copies of 3 selected publications, list of lectures offered so far and professional activities in the aerospace sector) are to be sent until 15. April 2009 to Dean of the Faculty for Mathematics and Computer Sciences, University Wuerzburg, Am Hubland, 97074 Wuerzburg, Germany, e-mail dekan at mathematik.uni-wuerzburg.de _______________________________________________________________________ Profile Julius-Maximilians-University Wuerzburg (JMUW) The university was first founded in 1402, enrolls today more than 20000 students in 12 faculties and hosts well known research institutions. 13 Nobel prize winners worked there, among them Wilhelm R?ntgen, the discoverer of the X-rays. W?rzburg, located near the centre of Germany, offers a wide range for recreation and leisure activities together with theaters, open-air concerts, and wine festivals. Located at the shores of the river Main, vineyards, castles, mediaval cities and baroque residences (the bishop?s residence is on the list of the UNESCO world inheritage) are characteristic for the region. The ?Center for Telematics? is an independent research institute combining advanced methods from telecommunications, automation and informatics to provide services at remote locations. In close cooperation with the University of Wuerzburg activities related to space applications, health care and traffic control are performed. In this context the first German picosatellite UWE-1 (University W?rzburg?s Experimental satellite, mass 1 kg, launched 2005) and UWE-2 (tobe launched 2009) were realized. UWE-1 successfully investigated the use of Internet Protocols in space, and in particular analyzed optimization and adaptation of crucial parameters in IP protocols to specific space environment conditions (e.g. delays due to large distances, higher noise level effects). On behalf of European Space Agency ESA, the Center for Telematics analyses the data flow in combined networks of satellites and ground control stations. Industrial contracts address capabilities of mobile ad-hoc networks of small satellites for robust, low-cost telecommunication purposes. From nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de Tue Feb 17 03:30:39 2009 From: nts at ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de (Nils T Siebel) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:30:39 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Final CfP, Submission open: HYCAS 2009 @ IJCAI-09 Message-ID: [Apologies if you receive this more than once!] Final Call for Papers The submission is now open: http://www.hycas.org/2009/papers/ Submission deadline: March 6 2009 ************************************************************************ HYCAS 2009 INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON HYBRID CONTROL OF AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS Integrating Learning, Deliberation and Reactive Control Held in conjunction with IJCAI-09 in Pasadena, CA, on July 13 2009 http://www.hycas.org/ ************************************************************************ CALL FOR PAPERS OBJECTIVES High-level control for Autonomous Systems (e.g. robots) is concerned with selecting the next action the system should perform. Known paradigms for this action selection problem are learning, deliberation, reactive control schemes or combinations of these, i.e. hybrid approaches. These paradigms have been known for over two decades, and in today's applications often combinations of learning, deliberation, and reactive control are used. Usually these combinations are used in an ad-hoc or even unconscious fashion. Although there is a number of proposed architectures and huge body of literature, the issue of combining learning, reactive and deliberative control never has been intensively investigated. With this workshop we wish to bring together researchers from different areas who concentrate on combinations of learning, planning, and/or reactive schemes for decision making and the control of autonomous systems. The workshop is open to all members of the AI and Robotics community. We would specifically like to encourage students to participate. RELEVANT TOPICS The questions to be addressed in this workshop are: * How can learning, deliberation and/or reactive control be combined such that the methods can benefit from each other -- e.g. by using a common representation? * What are the challenging domains demanding for hybrid control? * What are its successful applications? Papers are invited on all aspects of hybrid methods for the control of autonomous systems, including, but not limited to: * Decision Making * Modelling of Domains, Capabilities/Affordances and Robot Behaviours * Agent Learning * Cognitive Robotics * Behaviour-based Robotics and Emergent Control * Developmental and Epigenetic Robotics * Architectures and Architectural Patterns IMPORTANT DATES * March 6 2009: Paper Submission * April 17 2009: Notification of paper acceptance * May 8 2009: Camera ready paper submission * May 15 2009: Early registration deadline * July 13 2009: Workshop Authors of selected articles will be invited to submit an extended version of their workshop paper to a special issue of an international journal on robotics and automation. WORKSHOP CHAIRS Nils T Siebel Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany Gerald Steinbauer Graz University of Technology, Austria Alexander Ferrein RWTH Aachen University, Germany Josef Pauli University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Alexander Ferrein Alfredo Gabaldon Fredrik Heintz Christian Igel Yohannes Kassahun Tim Kovacs Gerhard K Kraetzschmar Gerhard Lakemeyer Ales Leonardis Pedro U Lima Daniele Nardi Josef Pauli Jan Peters Daniel Polani Martin Riedmiller Juergen Schmidhuber Nils T Siebel Gerald Steinbauer Ron Sun Marc Toussaint Hans Utz Markus Vincze ************************************************************************ More information on the workshop website: http://www.hycas.org/ ************************************************************************ =*=*=*=*= Nils T Siebel http://www.ks.informatik.uni-kiel.de/~nts/ =*=*=*=*= HYCAS - International Workshop on Hybrid Control of Autonomous Systems http://www.hycas.org/ =*=*=*=*= From akin at boun.edu.tr Tue Feb 17 05:47:15 2009 From: akin at boun.edu.tr (H. Levent AKIN) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:47:15 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] 2nd CFP: CLAWAR 2009 Message-ID: <499ABFE3.4010107@boun.edu.tr> Apologies for multiple postings. ----------------------------- CLAWAR'2009 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines 09 ? 11 September, 2009, Istanbul, Turkey http://www.clawar2009.org/ Call for Papers -------------------------------- Robotics is an exciting field in engineering and natural sciences. Robotics has already made important widespread contributions and impact in industrial robots for tasks such as assembly, welding, painting, and material handling. In parallel, we have also witnessed the emergence of special service robots which perform valuable jobs, in new environments such as search and rescue, surveillance, exploration and security missions as well as provide assistance to a variety of users. The emergence of mobile machines, such as the climbing and walking robots, for these missions in un-structured environments, has significantly broadened challenges that must be considered by robotics research. The purpose of the 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR'2009) is to provide a venue where researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners throughout the world can come together to present and discuss the latest achievements, future challenges and exciting applications for mobile service machines in general, and climbing and walking robots in particular. In order to benefit all participants, and also to maximize the interaction, the technical program of this conference is intentionally tailored to having relatively few parallel tracks. Each track will accommodate peer-reviewed articles, comprising regular and special sessions, dealing with theoretical, experimental and application works. Moreover, the conference will include several keynote lectures and poster sessions. Topics of Interest (non-exhaustive list): ---------------------------------------- RESEARCH ? Autonomous robots ? Tele-operated robots ? Biologically-inspired systems and solutions ? Innovative design of CLAWAR ? Modelling and simulation of CLAWAR ? Planning and control ? Co-operative robot systems ? Intelligence and learning for CLAWAR ? HMI ? Innovative actuators and power supplies ? Innovative sensors and sensor networks ? Positioning & localization ? Perception and sensor fusion ? Guidance and navigation ? Manipulation and gripping ? Legged locomotion ? Wheeled locomotion ? Hybrid locomotion ? Micro and nano robots ? Tele-presence and virtual reality ? Service robot standards and standardization ? SME robotics APPLICATION ? Planetary exploration ? Security ? Emergence rescue operations ? Surveillance ? Reconnaissance ? Education ? Biomedical robots ? Rehabilitation and function restoration ? Petrochemical applications ? Inspection ? Construction ? Entertainment ? Helping the elderly and the disabled ? Manufacturing ? Performing and creative arts robots ? Personal robots ? Robots for domestic environments ? Service robots ? Space robots ? Assistive robots ? Sport and exercise robots Important Dates: ---------------- March 1, 2009 Submission of Extended Abstracts April 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance May 15, 2009 Submission of Final (accepted) Papers June 1, 2009 Early Bird Registration June 1, 2009 Author Registration July 1, 2009 Preliminary Program September 9-11, 2009 Conference -- =================================================================== H.Levent Akin [] To acquire knowledge and Department of Computer Engineering [] communicate it to others Bogazici University [] has been the ambition, 34342 Bebek-Istanbul [] pleasure, and business of TURKEY [] my life. [] -William Harvey [] Phone: +90 (212) 359 6769 [] Fax: +90 (212) 287 2461 [] E-Mail:akin at boun.edu.tr [] URL:http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~akin [] From antonelli at unicas.it Tue Feb 17 09:38:33 2009 From: antonelli at unicas.it (Gianluca Antonelli) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:38:33 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE ICRA 2009 Workshop on Marine Robotics Message-ID: <499AF619.8090207@unicas.it> Apologize for multiple posting. ----------------------------------------------------------- WORKSHOP ANNOUNCEMENT IEEE ICRA'09 Workshop on Recent Developments in Marine Robotics ----------------------------------------------------------- The full-day workshop "Recent Developments in Marine Robotics" will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 17, 2009. WORKSHOP HOMEPAGE ----------------- http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC/workshop_web.htm GOAL AND SCOPE -------------- This workshop is aimed at presenting recent developments in marine robotics collecting keynote talks from experts of the main research institutions. Research presentations and discussions will complete the agenda. The scope of the workshop is intentionally broad with talks concerning single AUVs, multiple, coordinate marine robots, sensor networks, cooperative adaptive sampling, Underwater Vehicle-Manipulator Systems and biomimetic underwater robotics. An interesting overview with fruitful discussion and ideas for research directions are the expected outcomes of the workshop. Following the creation of a new IEEE RAS Technical Committe in Marine Robotics (http://webuser.unicas.it/MarineRoboticsTC), the objective of the workshop is to bring together several experts in different disciplines interested in marine robotics, but who normally do not interact with each other. This will reinforce the community of roboticists interested in marine theory and applications. Several topics are of interest, from homing to coordinated AUVs, coordinated control of multiple marine vehicles up to underwater intervention with AUVs equipped with a manipulator. This workshop will feature keynote talks, research presentations and discussions in these areas to report on the state-of-the-art in different related areas and to identify new directions for research. INVITED SPEAKERS ---------------- Joseph Ayers, Northeastern University, U.S.A. Andreas Birk, Jacobs University, Germany Giuseppe Casalino, University of Genova, Italy Peter Drewes, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Lab., U.S.A. Matthew Dunbabin, CSIRO ICT Centre, Australia Franz Hover, MIT, U.S.A. Kazuo Ishii, Kyutech, Japan Hayato Kondo, Tokyo Univ. of Marine Science & Technology, Japan Giacomo Marani, University of Hawaii, U.S.A. Vera Moffitt, Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Lab., U.S.A. Kristin Y. Pettersen, NTNU, Norway Gaurav Sukhatme, University of Southern California, U.S.A. Fumin Zhang, Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A. From raj.madhavan at nist.gov Tue Feb 17 12:33:17 2009 From: raj.madhavan at nist.gov (Raj Madhavan) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 15:33:17 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Participation: Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20090217151724.022ed100@mailhub.mel.nist.gov> CALL FOR PARTICIPATION NIST/IEEE Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition (VMAC) Teams are solicited for participation in the upcoming NIST/IEEE Virtual Manufacturing Automation Competition (VMAC). This includes both a national competition that will be held in late March'09 (NIST in Gaithersburg, MD, USA) and an international competition that will be held in May'09 at ICRA'09 (Kobe, Japan). Relevant details on the competition and how to participate follow. Additional information is available from the VMAC website at http://vmac.hood.edu/ and from the ICRA 2009 competitions website at http://icra.wustl.edu/. If interested, send an email to robosim at nist.gov. BACKGROUND Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and forklifts represent integral components of today?s manufacturing processes. They are widely used on factory floors for intra-factory transport of goods between conveyors and assembly sections, parts and frame movements, and truck-trailer loading/unloading. Automating these systems to operate in unstructured environments presents an exciting area of current research in robotics and automation. Unfortunately, the traditional entry barrier into this research area is quite high. Researchers need an extensive physical environment, robotic hardware, and knowledge in research areas ranging from mobility and mapping to behavior generation and scheduling. An accepted approach to lowering this entry barrier is through the use of simulation systems and open source software. It is our belief that competitions are an effective means of stimulating interest and participation among students by providing exciting technological problems to tackle. VISION FOR THE FUTURE The long-term goal of this competition is to present a full factory buffer-zone problem. This problem will involve a heterogeneous team of forklifts, unit loaders, and Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) that will cooperatively clear pallets from a temporary storage location and deliver needed supplies throughout the factory. The scenario begins with a truck unloading pallets into the buffer zone. A team of autonomous forklifts must move the pallets from the buffer zone to sorted storage shelves located a short distance away. Once loaded on the shelves, the pallet?s contents become available for distribution to users in the factory. The scenario continues with a parts request coming from a factory user. A robotic arm must take a package from the shelves and load it onto a conveyor where an AGV will be able to load the package for delivery. The AGV must then navigate through a dynamic factory environment to deliver the goods. Anticipated challenges include, traffic management, fine driving skills (for docking with pallets and conveyor stations), route planning, THIS YEAR'S COMPETITION This year?s competition will present a more modest scenario. A team of unit loaders will be tasked with transporting packages from a loading station to several different unloading stations. The unit loaders will be required to dock with the loading/unloading stations and interact with a conveyor system to load packages. The vehicle will then need to determine the package?s destination (through an RFID tag), and transport the package to the correct unloading station. Challenges will include fine autonomous vehicle control, path planning, and traffic management. Multiple paths will exist from the loading station to the unloading station. There will be a trade-off between path length and path traversal difficulty. A sample simulated world for this scenario exists on the sourceforge USARSim website. It may be accessed through this link (https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=145394&package_id=168955). The map package is called DM-VMAC1-3.31 and both .exe and .zip versions are available. A complete interface to the conveyor system of the factory is not yet complete. Until then, directions for command-line based interactions are included with the map distribution. COMPETITION REQUIREMENTS Requirements include the following: EMBODIMENT ? This is a virtual competition; the competition will involve multiple simulated robots ? The simulation engine that is used is Epic Game?s UnReal 2004 w/ Karma physics ? The socket level interface to the game engine is USARSim Control ? Teams will be fully autonomous ? Teams will accept high-level commands (e.g. init, mission start) over a Neutral Messaging Language (NML) connection (See www.sourceforge.net/projects/moast for communications definitions) ? Teams have the option of controlling robots via USARSim ASCII socket or using simWare middleware (an NML based middleware) ? Teams have the option of using as much of the MOAST control system (last year?s winning code base) as they desire PARTICIPATION ? Remote participation will be allowed ? Details are still being worked out ? We are looking for volunteers to help in this effort ? All code used in the competition becomes open source after the competition ? You cannot participate until you deliver your source code ? Teams are expected to publish their contributions at a scientific conference ? Last year, special session held at the Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems (PerMIS) Workshop: http://www.isd.mel.nist.gov/PerMIS_2008/ INTERESTED? If you are interested in participating, submit a succinct statement to robosim at nist.gov describing 1) how you expect to benefit from your participation, and 2) why you should be selected (emphasize skills and experience with respect to the requirements of the competition). Please be sure to also include the following information: * Team Name * Affiliation * Team Leader * Email * Phone * Team size (number of individuals) BEYOND THE COMPETITION Using a metrics-driven competition model, advancements in the various technologies comprising the AGV control system are quantified, helping the community gauge as well as target progress. It is our belief that these competitions will serve as a model for establishing a university-community focused on a real-world practical problem. MORE INFORMATION More information on USASim and MOAST are available from www.sourceforge.net/projects/usarsim and www.sourceforge.net/projects/moast. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Raj Madhavan, Ph.D. Intelligent Systems Division National Institute of Standards and Technology 100 Bureau Drive, Mail Stop 8230 Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8230. Tel: (301) 975-2865 Fax: (301) 990-9688 URL: http://aser.ornl.gov/madhavan/ From ieee-tro at illinois.edu Tue Feb 17 12:51:36 2009 From: ieee-tro at illinois.edu (Seth Hutchinson) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:51:36 -0600 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] TOC of IEEE Transactions on Robotics: February 2009 Message-ID: <499B2358.7060501@illinois.edu> The February 2009 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics is now available online via IEEE Xplore at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isYear=2009&isnumber=4773132 This link allows free access to all abstracts of the papers, as well as full access to the pdf files by subscription (either individual or institutional). The Table of Contents for the issue is as follows: Design Strategy of Serial Manipulators With Certified Constraint Satisfaction Oetomo, D.; Daney, D.; Merlet, J.-P. Page(s): 1-11 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006867 Geometrical Optimization of Parallel Mechanisms Based on Natural Frequency Evaluation: Application to a Spherical Mechanism for Future Space Applications Menon, C.; Vertechy, R.; Markot, M.; Parenti-Castelli, V. Page(s): 12-24 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008744 Structural Shakiness of Nonoverconstrained Translational Parallel Mechanisms With Identical Limbs Li, Q.; Herve, J. Page(s): 25-36 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006869 Asymptotically Stable Walking of a Five-Link Underactuated 3-D Bipedal Robot Chevallereau, C.; Grizzle, J. W.; Shih, C-.L. Page(s): 37-50 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2010366 Powered Ankle--Foot Prosthesis Improves Walking Metabolic Economy Au, S. K.; Weber, J.; Herr, H. Page(s): 51-66 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008747 Mechanics of Precurved-Tube Continuum Robots Webster, III, R. J.; Romano, J. M.; Cowan, N. J. Page(s): 67-78 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006868 Development of a Flying Robot With a Pantograph-Based Variable Wing Mechanism Hara, N.; Tanaka, K.; Ohtake , H.; Wang, H. O. Page(s): 79-87 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008736 A Nonlinear Set Membership Approach for the Localization and Map Building of Underwater Robots Jaulin, L. Page(s): 88-98 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2010358 A Multisensor Decision Fusion System for Terrain Safety Assessment Seraji, H.; Serrano, N. Page(s): 99-108 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006705 Visual Servo Control Achieving Nanometer Resolution in $X$ ?$Y$?$Z$ Kim, J. H.; Menq, C.-H. Page(s): 109-116 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2003267 3-D Source Seeking for Underactuated Vehicles Without Position Measurement Cochran, J.; Siranosian, A.; Ghods, N.; Krstic , M. Page(s): 117-129 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008742 A Distributed Heuristic for Energy-Efficient Multirobot Multiplace Rendezvous Litus, Y.; Zebrowski, P.; Vaughan, R. T. Page(s): 130-135 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2007459 Flow-Through Policies for Hybrid Controller Synthesis Applied to Fully Actuated Systems Conner, D. C.; Choset, H.; Rizzi, A. A. Page(s): 136-146 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008738 Performance Evaluation for Multi-arm Manipulation of Hollow Suspended Organs Wei, W.; Goldman, R. E.; Fine, H. F.; Chang, S. F.; Simaan, N. Page(s): 147-157 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006865 Parallel Mechanisms With Bifurcation of Schoenflies Motion Li, Q.; Herve, J. M. Page(s): 158-164 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008737 Swedish Wheeled Omnidirectional Mobile Robots: Kinematics Analysis and Control Indiveri, G. Page(s): 164-171 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2010360 Compliant Terrain Adaptation for Biped Humanoids Without Measuring Ground Surface and Contact Forces Hyon, S.-H. Page(s): 171-178 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006870 Omnidirectional Visual-Servo of a Gough?Stewart Platform Tahri , O.; Mezouar , Y.; Andreff , N.; Martinet , P. Page(s): 178-183 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2008745 Automatic Camera-Based Microscope Calibration for a Telemicromanipulation System Using a Virtual Pattern Ammi, M.; Fremont, V.; Ferreira, A. Page(s): 184-191 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006866 Image Guidance of Flexible Tip-Steerable Needles Kallem, V.; Cowan, N. J. Page(s): 191-196 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2010357 Adaptive/Robust Control for Time-Delay Teleoperation Shahdi , A.; Sirouspour, S. Page(s): 196-205 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2010963 Dynamic Performance of a SCARA Robot Manipulator With Uncertainty Using Polynomial Chaos Theory Voglewede, P.; Smith, A; Monti, A. Page(s): 206-210 Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TRO.2008.2006871 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Seth Hutchinson Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions on Robotics Address: The Beckman Institute Phone: +1 217 244-5570 405 North Mathews Ave E-mail: seth at uiuc.edu Urbana, IL 61801 FAX: +1 217 333-2922 http://www.uiuc.edu/~seth ------------------------------------------------------------------- From gaurav at usc.edu Tue Feb 17 13:54:33 2009 From: gaurav at usc.edu (Gaurav S. Sukhatme) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:54:33 -0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Autonomous Robots 26(1) TOC Message-ID: <562c8ffd0902171354g10727797pf85ea839da19d0d0@mail.gmail.com> Volume 26 Number 1 of Autonomous Robots is now available at the SpringerLink website (http://www.springerlink.com/content/0929-5593). SpringerLink allows free access to all paper abstracts. Full access (PDF) is by individual or institutional subscription. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Autonomous Robots 26(1) Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------------- The sensory ego-sphere: a mediating interface between sensors and cognition Author(s): Richard Alan Peters, Kimberly A. Hambuchen, Robert E. Bodenheimer DOI: 10.1007/s10514-008-9098-3 Pages: 1 - 19 Evolved swarming without positioning information: an application in aerial communication relay Author(s): Sabine Hauert, Jean-Christophe Zufferey, Dario Floreano DOI: 10.1007/s10514-008-9104-9 Pages: 21 - 32 Classification-based wheel slip detection and detector fusion for mobile robots on outdoor terrain Author(s): Karl Iagnemma, Chris C. Ward DOI: 10.1007/s10514-008-9105-8 Pages: 33 - 46 Asymmetric trajectory generation and impedance control for running of biped robots Author(s): Ohung Kwon, Jong Hyeon Park DOI: 10.1007/s10514-008-9106-7 Pages: 47 - 78 Multi-robot deployment and coordination with Embedded Graph Grammars Author(s): Brian Smith, Ayanna Howard, John-Michael McNew, Jiuguang Wang, Magnus Egerstedt DOI: 10.1007/s10514-008-9107-6 Pages: 79 - 98 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Gaurav S. Sukhatme Editor-in-Chief Autonomous Robots http://robotics.usc.edu/~gaurav From mdorigo at ulb.ac.be Wed Feb 18 01:27:32 2009 From: mdorigo at ulb.ac.be (Marco Dorigo) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:27:32 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Special Issue on Swarm Robotics of the journal "Swarm Intelligence" Message-ID: <045E727D-470F-452A-B309-B4C075555140@ulb.ac.be> Special Issue: Swarm Robotics. Guest Editors: Erol Sahin and Alan Winfield -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 2 Numbers 2-4 of Swarm Intelligence is now available at the SpringerLink website (http://www.springer.com/11721). SpringerLink allows free access to all paper abstracts. Full access (PDF) is by individual or institutional subscription. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swarm Intelligence 2(2-4) Table of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special issue on swarm robotics - Editorial Author(s): Erol ?ahin and Alan Winfield DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0020-6 Pages: 69-72 Evolving coordinated group behaviours through maximisation of mean mutual information Author(s): Valerio Sperati, Vito Trianni and Stefano Nolfi DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0017-1 Pages: 73-95 Self-organized flocking in mobile robot swarms Author(s): Ali E. Turgut, Hande ?elikkanat, Fatih G?k?e and Erol ?ahin DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0016-2 Pages: 97-120 Biologically inspired redistribution of a swarm of robots among multiple sites Author(s): M. Ani Hsieh, ?d?m Hal?sz, Spring Berman and Vijay Kumar DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0019-z Pages: 121-141 SWARMORPH-script: a language for arbitrary morphology generation in self-assembling robots Author(s): Anders Lyhne Christensen, Rehan O?Grady and Marco Dorigo DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0012-6 Pages: 143-165 Ant-based swarming with positionless micro air vehicles for communication relay Author(s): Sabine Hauert, Laurent Winkler, Jean-Christophe Zufferey and Dario Floreano DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0013-5 Pages: 167-188 Massively multi-robot simulation in stage Author(s): Richard Vaughan DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0014-4 Pages: 189-208 A framework of space?time continuous models for algorithm design in swarm robotics Author(s): Heiko Hamann and Heinz W?rn DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0015-3 Pages: 209-239 Modelling a wireless connected swarm of mobile robots Author(s): Alan F. T. Winfield, Wenguo Liu, Julien Nembrini and Alcherio Martinoli DOI 10.1007/s11721-008-0018-0 Pages: 241-266 = ======================================================================== Swarm Intelligence: a quarterly journal published by Springer Information on the journal available at http://www.springer.com/11721 Papers can be submitted at http://www.editorialmanager.com/swrm = ======================================================================== Marco Dorigo, Ph.D. email mdorigo@(no.spam)ulb.ac.be Directeur de Recherches du FNRS URL iridia.ulb.ac.be/~mdorigo IRIDIA CP 194/6 Skype: mdorigo Universite' Libre de Bruxelles Tel +32 (0)2 6503169 Avenue Franklin Roosevelt 50 Mobile +32 478 301233 1050 Bruxelles Fax +32 (0)2 6502715 Belgium Secretary +32 (0)2 6502729 = ======================================================================== From m.witkowski at imperial.ac.uk Thu Feb 19 08:57:32 2009 From: m.witkowski at imperial.ac.uk (Witkowski, Mark) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:57:32 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems (TAROS-09) CFP Message-ID: TAROS 2009 - Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems First call for papers August 31st - September 2nd, 2009 University of Ulster, Derry www.taros.org.uk TAROS-09 is a platform for robot researchers with a wide range of interests from the U.K., Europe and worldwide. TAROS welcomes paper submissions on a wide range of topics related to the principles and practice of robotics. Submissions of papers are invited in any of the following or related areas: * Advanced applications of autonomous robots (industrial and research) * Advanced materials * Advanced medical robotics, robots for surgery * Analysis of robot-environment interaction * Autonomous assembly robotics * Biologically inspired robotics * Cognitive robotics * Collective robots * Developmental robotics * Hardware issues, devices and techniques, advanced sensor and actuator hardware * Learning and adaptation * Modelling and analysis of robot models * Navigation, localization, map building and path planning * Personal robotics and human-robot interface * Robot autonomy * Robot vision, sensing and perception * Robot control architectures * Robots in education, the arts and entertainment * Space and planetary robotics TAROS-09 welcomes submissions from senior researchers and research students alike, and will specifically provide opportunities for research students and young research scientists to present their work to the scientific community. TAROS-09 will be held at the University of Ulster, Derry, August 31st - September 2nd, 2009. On campus accommodation will be available. Registration will include a guided tour of historic Derry City Wall and a civic reception by the Mayor in the Guildhall. An optional excursion to the Giant's Causeway and Bushmills distillery will be available on Thursday, September 3rd. TAROS-09 keynote speakers are: Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Bert Sakmann (Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology, Munich and University of Ulster) "Mechanisms of decision making and sensory initiated behaviour in the cerebral cortex", Prof. Roger Hubbold (University of Manchester) "Creating 3D Computer Models from Images", and Prof. Raymond Tallis (University of Manchester) "Myth-Information. A Critique of the Computational of Mind". The deadline for the submission of papers is 15th May 2009. Refereed papers from the conference will be published in a proceedings volume, and be made available on the WWW. Submission instructions may be found on the conference website: www.taros.org.uk. From markus.waibel at robotspodcast.com Thu Feb 19 13:35:36 2009 From: markus.waibel at robotspodcast.com (Markus Waibel) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:35:36 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Robots podcast interviews Message-ID: <499DD0A8.4040707@robotspodcast.com> ***Apologies for multiple postings*** Dear Colleagues, I hope you will find this robotics podcast interesting and useful: http://www.robotspodcast.com The podcast interviews are intended as a top-quality information resource for robotics. They target a general technically oriented public and are also well suited as class material. Further information below. Best regards, Markus Waibel --- The Robots Podcast Robots is a non-profit association run by a group of researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is dedicated to providing free, high quality, educational information for the robotics community and the general public. Robots has very broad support in the robotics community. It's board assembles well known academics and roboticists including Dr. Terry Fong (NASA Ames Research Center), Prof. Robin Murphy (University of Florida), Prof. Rolf Pfeifer (ETHZ, Switzerland), Prof. Yasuo Kuniyoshi (ISI, University of Tokyo), Prof. Dario Floreano (EPFL, Switzerland), Prof. Auke Jan Ijspeert (EPFL, Switzerland), and Steven Rainwater (Robots.net). Robots' past guests include Mark Tilden from WowWee Robotics, Prof. Robert Full from UC Berkeley, Prof. Metin Sitti from Carnegie Mellon University, and Prof. Robert Wood from Harvard University among many others. Its audience includes opinion leaders in 96 countries around the world. Robots is available via Apple iTunes and all other major podcast servers. It has been consistently awarded five star ratings. The Robots podcast has also been nominated for two podcast awards. From elebox10 at nus.edu.sg Thu Feb 19 19:00:07 2009 From: elebox10 at nus.edu.sg (Social Robotics Lab) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:00:07 +0800 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] TOC - The Inaugural Issue 2009: Intl Journal of Social Robotics Message-ID: <00e901c99307$5683eb70$038bc250$@edu.sg> ************************************************************************ International Journal of Social Robotics - Inaugural Issue Volume 01, Number 01, 2009 ************************************************************************ The Inaugural Issue is now available online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/t3302306g327/?p=3021e5e06d9d4629bcbd9623 22a7be54&pi=0 These articles allow free access to pdf files for the first two years The Table of Contents for the Inaugural Issue is as follows: Preface ?????? Shuzhi Sam Ge and Maja J. Matari? ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/mh22206147502655/fulltext.pdf Keepon: A Playful Robot for Research, Therapy, and Entertainment ?????? Hideki Kozima, Marek P. Michalowski and Cocoro Nakagawa ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/v7hqn0q322679qn7/fulltext.pdf Multi-Layer Architecture of Ubiquitous Robot System for?Integrated Services ?????? Jong-Hwan Kim, In-Bae Jeong, In-Won Park and Kang-Hee Lee ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/w0u0h21111h71200/fulltext.pdf Towards Humanlike Social Touch for Sociable Robotics and?Prosthetics: Comparisons on?the?Compliance, Conformance and Hysteresis of Synthetic and Human Fingertip Skins ?????? John-John Cabibihan, St?phane Pattofatto, Moez Jom?a, Ahmed Benallal and Maria Chiara Carrozza ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/55123g34g506xh0m/fulltext.pdf Modeling Aspects of Theory of Mind with Markov Random Fields ?????? Jesse Butterfield, Odest Chadwicke Jenkins, David M. Sobel and Jonas Schwertfeger ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/v7766225156u1250/fulltext.pdf Satisficing Coordination and Social Welfare for Robotic Societies ?????? Wynn C. Stirling and Matthew S. Nokleby ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/416p5803172rw506/fulltext.pdf Measurement Instruments for the Anthropomorphism, Animacy, Likeability, Perceived Intelligence, and Perceived Safety of Robots ?????? Christoph Bartneck, Dana Kuli?, Elizabeth Croft and Susana Zoghbi? ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/d422u846113572qn/fulltext.pdf Where Robots and Virtual Agents Meet: A Survey of Social Interaction Research across Milgram's Reality-Virtuality Continuum ?????? Thomas Holz, Mauro Dragone and G. M. P. O'Hare ????? ?http://www.springerlink.com/content/c1235h2558367676/fulltext.pdf Toward Acceptable Domestic Robots: Applying Insights from Social Psychology ?????? James E. Young, Richard Hawkins, Ehud Sharlin and Takeo Igarashi ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/p8452j71kt410472/fulltext.pdf Using Attachable Humanoid Parts for Realizing Imaginary Intention and Body Image ?????? Hirotaka Osawa, Ren Ohmura and Michita Imai ?????? http://www.springerlink.com/content/eprvw77q622u7266/fulltext.pdf For more information, please visit: On-Line Submission: http://www.editorialmanager.com/soro/ Description of the Journal: http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369 Aims and Scope: http://www.springer.com/engineering/journal/12369?detailsPage=aimsAndScopes Yours sincerely, S.S. Ge Social Robotics Lab, Interactive Digital Media Institute and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117576, Singapore e-mail: samge at nus.edu.sg M.J. Mataric Viterby School of Engineering (VSoE), University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA e-mail: maja at pollux.usc.edu From Torbjorn.Dahl at newport.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 05:11:21 2009 From: Torbjorn.Dahl at newport.ac.uk (Torbjorn Dahl) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:11:21 -0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Research associate and PhD positions in robotics, UK Message-ID: The Robotic Intelligence Laboratory at the University of Wales, Newport, UK are looking to employ a research associate (RA) and two PhD students for a new research project ROBOSKIN, on skin-based technologies and capabilities for safe, autonomous and interactive robots. This is a three-year EC FP7 funded project with 5 other partners across Europe, including Italy, Switzerland and the UK. The work will focus on behaviour modelling and reinforcement learning related to employing a novel tactile sensor (robot skin) on the Nao humanoid robot platform. The work will mainly take place in Newport, Wales, but will also include some travel to our European partners. Candidates should have good programming and software engineering skills, a strong interest in robotics research, and good analytical and communication skills. The project involves research on human motion capture for modelling protective robot reflexes and on reinforcement learning for the production of tactile communication gestures. The RA post requires a PhD in a relevant field and will focus on the modelling and development of tactile protective reflexes. One PhD student will study generic and reusable representations for protective reflexes. This position will require a Bachelor degree in a relevant field and experience in developing robot software. The other PhD student will study the production of tactile communicative gestures. This position will also require a Bachelor degree in a relevant field and experience in developing reinforcement learning algorithms. Salary scales: RA: ?27,999 - ?32,458 and PhDs: ?16,799. The closing date for applications is March 12th 2009. Employment will start May 1st 2009. Official information on these positions will shortly be available from the University web site (http://www.newport.ac.uk/jobs ). To be notified of the official announcement of these positions and for informal enquiries, please contact the lab coordinator Dr Torbjorn Dahl, email: torbjorn.dahl at newport.ac.uk, phone: +44 (0)1633 432344 (direct). The Robotic Intelligence Lab (RIL) (http://ril.newport.ac.uk ) at the University of Wales, Newport has been growing rapidly since its foundation in 2004 and currently has a number of active research projects funded both nationally (UK) and through Europe. The lab is located at the University's Allt-yr-yn Campus close to the centre of the city and is due to move into dedicated facilities in the University's new riverside campus by 2011. The University of Wales, Newport (UWN) (http://www.newport.ac.uk ) is part of the University of Wales confederation and has long traditions in engineering, mechatronics and robotics. UWN gained university status in 2004 and has a stimulating mix of national, European and international students. UWN was ranked 55th out of 132 in the UK and 5th out of 10 in Wales in the 2008 UK research assessment exercise. From Jan.Becker at us.bosch.com Wed Feb 18 11:38:35 2009 From: Jan.Becker at us.bosch.com (Becker Jan (CR/RTC1.1-NA)) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:38:35 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Internships Robotics, Autonomous Systems, 3D Reconstruction at Bosch RTC Message-ID: The Bosch Research and Technology Center in Palo Alto, CA has a couple internships available for 2009 in the area of Robotics, Autonomous Systems, 3D Reconstruction. Please see http://www.bosch.us/content/language1/html/7279.htm for more information. Please spread this message to students and colleagues who may be interested. thanks Jan Becker From ayanna at ece.gatech.edu Fri Feb 20 09:37:15 2009 From: ayanna at ece.gatech.edu (Ayanna M. Howard) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:37:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems (ISRIS 2009) Message-ID: <37386.24.30.77.187.1235151435.squirrel@secure2.ece.gatech.edu> International School in Robotics and Intelligent Systems (ISRIS 2009) Focus theme: Assistive robots and systems for healthcare and rehabilitation will take place in Iasi, Romania July 22-26, 2009 http://www.isris.info/isris09.html The school will consist of lectures, lab/demonstrations and interactive sessions in the following subject areas: Prosthetic Technologies, Recuperative Systems, Exoskeletons,Therapeutic/Surgery Robotics,Assistive and Caregiving Robotics, Bio-signal collection and information processing, Intelligence for robotics and prosthetic devices. Target audience: PhD-level researchers - those currently pursuing the degree, seriously considering, or having completed the PhD and showing interest in the topics of the school. Confirmed School Lecturers (more to be added) * Paolo Fiorini, University of Verona, Italy * Eddie Tunstel, Applied Physics Laboratory, John Hopkins University, USA * Alberto Rovetta, Univerity of Milan,Italy * Jos Vander Sloten, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium * Dirk Lefeber, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium * Frederic Colledani, CEA, France * Adriana Tapus, University of Southern California, USA * Paul Botez, UMF, Romania * Michael A. Newell, JPL/Caltech, USA * Dragos Arotaritei, UMF, Iasi, Romania * Tughrul Arslan, University of Edinburgh, UK * Adrian Stoica, JPL/Caltech, USATarget audience: ISRIS 2009 is part of AT-EQUAL 2009 which also includes: LAB-RS July 22-24, 2009 2nd ECSIS Symposium on Learning and Adaptive Behaviours in Robotic Systems. www.labrs.info/labrs09.html ARTIPED July 24-26, 2009 The Exploratory Workshop on Assistive and Recuperative Technologies for Injured, ill, Pregnant, Elderly and people with Disabilities ISRIS will take place over the entire duration of the two events (LAB-RS and ARTIPED). Students will be able to attend evening invited presentations at these events. ISRIS 2009 will take place in Iasi, Romania. The capital of the medieval principality of Moldavia, Iasi is a city immersed in history and culture, yet trendy and vibrant due to the tens of thousands of university students that live in Romania?s oldest - and second largest -university city. The social program will include a tour to the famous painted monasteries of Northern Moldavia and Iasi sightseeing. Applicants should submit a CV and a short (up to one page) description of research interests to Adrian.stoica at jpl.nasa.gov, with subject ISRIS 2009 Application. Applications will be reviewed in the order received. The school will be limited to 40 students. To secure a place it is advised to apply early. School Directors: * Ioan Doroftei,Tech UnivIasi, Romania * Ayanna Howard, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA * Adrian Stoica, NASA-JPL, Caltech,USA From jitan at mtu.edu Fri Feb 20 12:52:47 2009 From: jitan at mtu.edu (Jindong Tan) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 15:52:47 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IROS 2009 CFP: Deadline Reminder Message-ID: <98590A7F-73CF-4E50-B189-1D34CF69D3E8@mtu.edu> Dear colleagues: This is a friendly reminder that the deadline for IROS 09 paper/video submission is approaching. The 2009 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2009) is soliciting papers from the academic, industrial and government communities for the October 11-15, 2009 conference in St Louis, Missouri, USA in all related areas including but not limited by the following topics: Evolutionary Robotics Distributed Sensor Networks Robot Surgery Search and Rescue Robots Biorobotics Humanoid Robotics Autonomous Vehicles Entertainment Robots Rehabilitation Robotics Micro/Nano Robotics Underwater Robots Service Robotics Autonomous Vehicles Please follow this URL to submit your papers: http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/index.php/Papers Links to submission of videos, workshop/tutorial proposals, invited session proposals can be found at http://www.iros09.mtu.edu/index.php/Contribution_Overview MPORTANT DATES February 15, 2009: Proposals for organized/special sessions March 1, 2009: Submission of full-length papers and videos March 1, 2009: Proposals for tutorials/workshops May 31, 2009: Notification of paper and video acceptance Website: http://www.iros09.mtu.edu Contact: iros09 at mtu.edu Ning Xi, Michigan State University, USA, General Chair William R. Hamel, University of Tennessee, USA, Program Chair ------------------------------------------------------- Jindong Tan Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 121 EERC, 1400 Townsend Drive Houghton, MI 49931-1295 Phone: 906 487 3115(O) Fax: 906 487 2949 email: jitan at mtu.edu ------------------------------------------------------- From dhong at exchange.vt.edu Mon Feb 23 07:07:08 2009 From: dhong at exchange.vt.edu (Dennis Hong) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:07:08 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] URAI 09 CfP Message-ID: <65C15726-1EA4-4309-B05F-A1972A8A3964@exchange.vt.edu> Dear Colleague, The 6th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2009) October 28 - 31, 2009, Gwangju, Republic of Korea http://www.kros.org/urai2009/ The 6th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots and Ambient Intelligence (URAI 2009),hosted by Korea Robot Society (KROS) will be held on October 28-31, 2009 at Kimdaejung Convention Center, Gwangju, Korea. Other robot related events (Automobile-Robot Exhibition and World Light Exposition) will be also held during this week. The aim of this conference is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners to present their ideas and recent works related to the various aspects of ubiquitous robots, ambient intelligence, HRI, mobile robotics, sensors and networks. Four days conference consists of one day?s workshop, two days? technical program, and half-day?s unforgettable cultural tour program around Gwangju. We are pleased to invite you to submit papers and video, propose the organized sessions, and attend the URAI 2009. The TOPICS covered by the conference are, but not limited to: MAIN TOPICS Division I : Ubiquitous Robots Network-based Robotics, Ambient Intelligence, Intelligent Space / Environment Technologies, Human-Robot Interaction, Robot Vision and Audition, Robot Intelligence and Learning, Robotic Agents, Sensor Network and Sensor Fusion Division II : Robotic Mechanisms and Systems Navigation / Localization, Robot Kinematics and Dynamics, Robotic Mechanisms and Design, Humanoid Robots, Haptics / Teleoperation, Sensors and Actuators, Medical / Rehabilitation Robotics, Biorobotics, Control Architecture and Middleware AUTHOR SCHEDULE: Important dates May 15, 2009: Initial submission of short papers (2 pages) June 15, 2009 : Notification of Acceptance July 31, 2009 : Submission of camera ready papers/video SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: In the initial submission, authors are required to submit a short paper (2 pages) In the final submission, authors select one of the following three submission types. 1. Regular papers (4-6 pages), which report novel and significant contribution 2. Work in progress papers (2-4 pages), which present recent ideas and on-going works 3. Video papers (2 pages+video), which report successful implementation. Please submit your papers or video written in English to http://www.kros.org/urai2009/ where templates can be found. The presented papers will be further screened for possible publication in Journal of Intelligent Service Robots. Sponsors Sponsored by Korean Robot Society Technically co-sponsored tentatively by IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, Robot Society of Japan(RSJ), Robot Society of Taiwan(RST) All inquiries related to the conference to Secreteriat : Ji Yeong Lee (Hanyang Univ., Korea) e-mail : jiyeongl at hanyang.ac.kr Tel: +82-31-400-5253 Byung-Ju Yi, Ph.D. General Chair of URAI 2009 Hanyang University Korea From rh-jobs at ipfn.ist.utl.pt Mon Feb 23 07:12:30 2009 From: rh-jobs at ipfn.ist.utl.pt (ITER - Remote Handling) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:12:30 +0000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Opportunity to work on Remote Handling of a nuclear fusion project Message-ID: <49A2BCDE.6030107@ipfn.ist.utl.pt> *CAD/ Matlab Programmer Engineer for path planning of mobile vehicles on ITER** *Ref: 0901 - Edital BL 48/2009 IST (Instituto Superior T?cnico) is one of the research institute leader in the field of Remote Handling -- ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor -- www.iter.org) and ad seeking a Programmer Engineer with expertise on CAD and MATLAB for developing path planning and trajectory optimization of mobile vehicles inside the complex Tokamak Building, the heart of ITER. *_Qualifications and Experience: _*Applicants should have obtained an MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, or related areas. Candidates should have experience on CAD (CATIA/DELMIA), programming (C/C++ and MATLAB), robotics and solid knowledge in English. Candidates may show independence and resourcefulness, good working habits, and the ability to integrate well in a multidisciplinary team. *_Grant conditions: _*The successful candidates will receive a grant of 980.00 EUR per month, paid 12 months a year, free of taxes. The offer corresponds to a 1-year grant and may be extended for an extra period of 6 months. The social security insurance will be supported by IST. *Application deadline*: 2009/03/13 *For more information:* http://www.ipfn.ist.utl.pt/rh/ rh-jobs at ipfn.ist.utl.pt *Submit your application to*: N?cleo de Gest?o de Pessoal - IST Av. Rovisco Pais, 1 1049-001 Lisboa -- PORTUGAL From l.vlacic at griffith.edu.au Mon Feb 23 08:43:10 2009 From: l.vlacic at griffith.edu.au (Ljubo Vlacic) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:43:10 +1000 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call For Papers: SPECIAL ISSUE ON CO-OPERATIVE ROBOTS, MACHINES AND SYSTEMS Message-ID: Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems SPECIAL ISSUE ON CO-OPERATIVE ROBOTS, MACHINES AND SYSTEMS FOCUS This special issue, being focused on a broad spectrum of co-operative systems - regardless of whether they are embodied as co-operative machines, cooperative robots, co-operative unmanned vehicles, co-operative software agents, co-operative computer games or just co-operative embedded systems - seeks submissions from scientists and researchers affiliated with both academic and industrial research institutes, as well as government institutions, on topics related (but not limited) to Co-operative Real- Time Decision Making & Control Models, Algorithms and Techniques for: - Co-operative Robots - Co-operative Embedded Systems - Co-operative Unmanned Vehicles (terrain and urban road vehicles, underwater and air vehicles) - Co-operative Machines - Co-operative Software Agents - Co-operative Computer Games - Co-operative Systems Related to these topics are also - Co-operative System Architectures - Co-operative Communication Protocols and - Real-time Data Exchange techniques between on-board sensors and on- board processing units, as well as between robots, machines and systems themselves. Submissions addressing practical applications and in-field experimental testing are strongly encouraged. IMPORTANT DATES: 30 March 2009: Call for Papers 30 May 2009: Expression of Interest 01 June 2009: Opening Paper Submission 30 October 2009: Closing Paper Submission 28 February 2010: Paper Acceptance Announcement 15 April 2010: Camera-ready Paper Submission July/August 2010: Expected Publication ELECTRONIC SUBMISSION AND REVIEW PROCESS Letters of intent are not compulsory. However, the authors are strongly encouraged to inform Professor Ljubo Vlacic of their intention to submit a paper. Authors are advised to follow the electronic paper submission requirements, as per the Information for Authors Guidelines published at the journal?s web site. The entire paper electronic submission process as well as the paper review process will be managed via the journal?s web site at http://www.editorialmanager.com/jint/. The authors should click on to the Special Issue on Coop RM&S menu option from the Article Type List. In case of any difficulty with the submission process, authors are encouraged to contact the Editorial Manager Ms Gabriela de Poel via gabriela.depoel at springer.com . GUEST EDITORS: Professor Ljubo Vlacic, Griffith University, Australia Fax: +61 7 3875 5198, Email: l.vlacic at griffith.edu.au Professor Toshio Fukuda, Nagoya University, Japan Fax no. +81 5 2789 3115. Email: fukuda at mein.nagoya-u.ac.jp Dr Michel Parent, INRIA, France Fax: +33 1 3963 5491 Email: michel.parent at inria.fr From elrob at fgan.de Tue Feb 24 01:40:11 2009 From: elrob at fgan.de (elrob) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 10:40:11 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ELROB 2009: Two open slots for C-ELROB 2009 Message-ID: <49A3C07B.9070509@fgan.de> Dear participants, spectators, and roboticists, the European Robotics Trial 2009 will take place in Oulu Finland from the 15-18.June 2009. It allows to demonstrate and compare the capabilities of unmanned systems in realistic scenarios and terrains. Therefore it is as close as possible to the typical deployment scenario for today. ELROB is designed to assess current technology to solve problems at hand, using whatever strategy to achieve it. We believe that we are all committed to demonstrating at ELROB is presenting cutting edge robotics technology, applied to real world applications, that can shape the direction of research for the short and medium term. ELROB will enable Europe to re-engage in the benefits robotics can deliver now and the future. There are two slots left for participating in the C-ELROB 2009 We need to have your LOI (signed and stamped) as soon as possible if you want to participate. Featured scenarios this time: 1. Reconnaissance and surveillance 2. Transport - Mule 3. Camp security 4. Autonomous navigation For more information please visit our web-page "http://www.c-elrob.eu/". regards Frank E. Schneider From jcpark at jcinter.co.kr Tue Feb 24 04:24:55 2009 From: jcpark at jcinter.co.kr (JC Park) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:24:55 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CIRA2009: Request for Posting Our CFP (Feb. 24, 2009) Message-ID: <200902241225.n1OCP6b09201@usc.edu> Dear Sir, This is JC Park, secretariat of CIRA2009, Korea. I was recommended to post our CIRA2009 information on the Robotics-worldwide listserve by Rosalyn Graham Snyder, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society. Would you post below CFP on robotics-worldwide? Sincerely yours, JC Park (1st Call for Papers) CIRA2009 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotic and Automation Daejeon, Korea December 15 - 18, 2009 http://www.cira2009.org --------------------------------------------------------- The 8th IEEE International Symposium on Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation (CIRA2009) provides an opportunity for prominent researchers, engineers and practitioners to present the latest research results, innovations, and potential future directions in computational intelligence in robotics and automation. Ubiquitous computing has motivated a paradigm shift in robotics, which has commenced the new multidisciplinary research areas such as ubiquitous robotics and genetic robotics, initiating the next generation of robotics, following the first generation of industrial robotics and the second generation of personal robotics. Special emphasis will be placed on the usage of computational intelligence technologies to realize cognitive intelligence, social intelligence, behavioral intelligence, ambient intelligence and genetic intelligence for the next generation robots and also to implement intelligent knowledge service systems, medical systems, health care systems, manufacturing systems and automation systems. The Symposium covers the following topics, but is not limited to these: . Evolutionary computation . Fuzzy logic . Neural networks . Machine learning . Sensor fusion . Computer vision . Voice recognition . Agent technology . Cognitive intelligence . Social intelligence . Behavioral intelligence . Ambient intelligence . Genetic intelligence . Swarm intelligence . Intelligent systems . Adaptive and learning system . Knowledge service system . Personal robotics . Ubiquitous robotics . Genetic robotics . Biologically inspired robotics . Evolutionary robotics . Modular robotics . Multi co-operative robotics . Cyber-physical system robotics . Health-care robotics . Complex behaviors Electronic Paper Submission Papers are invited on all aspects of computational intelligence in robotics and automation. Six pages are allowed for each paper. Up to four additional pages will be permitted with extra charge. Full-length papers in standard IEEE format must be submitted electronically in either the PS (PostScript) or PDF (Portable Document Format) file format as per the electronic submission instructions published on the CIRA2009 website (http://www.cira2009.org). Special Session, Tutorial and Workshop Proposals Proposals for special sessions consisting of four papers and for half and full day tutorials and workshops are welcome. Proposals should include a statement of purposes and a summary with a list of speakers and their topics with abstracts. Further information will be posted on the CIRA2009 website (http://www.cira2009.org). Location The CIRA2009 will be held at DCC (Daejeon Convention Center) where is the optimal venue to support all kinds of meetings and convention activities. Several major science facilities such as Daedeok Valley, EXPO Park are adjacent to the DCC. Daejeon, where longstanding tradition and future science co-exist, was reborn as a convention city of new concept. It is a clean and modern city with excellent transportation system, state-of-the-art convention facilities, various tourist attractions and accommodations. The biggest strength of Daejeon as a MICE site is that it is the hub of Korea's science and technology industries. Important Dates Deadline for electronic submission of full-length papers: July 31, 2009 Deadline for proposals for special sessions, tutorials and workshops: July 31, 2009 Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2009 Deadline for electronic submission of final papers: October 31, 2009 Sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society From bradley.nelson at iris.mavt.ethz.ch Tue Feb 24 04:50:07 2009 From: bradley.nelson at iris.mavt.ethz.ch (Nelson Bradley) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:50:07 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Postdoc and Ph.D. openings in Robotics at ETH Zurich Message-ID: <12DDB272B3619B49ACE8A185DEB6CD34013322B3@EX6.d.ethz.ch> ********************** Immediate opening for Postdoctoral Associates at ETH Zurich in the area of robot control and modeling and/or Microfabrication My Multi-Scale Robotics Lab in the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich has immediate postdoc openings. I am looking for someone with a strong background in the area of robotic control and modeling interested in working with our microrobotics group on the control of wirelessly guided magnetic microrobots for biomedical applications. No microtechnology experience is required, but it would be useful. A biomedical background would help as well. I am also looking for someone with capabilities in microfabrication. This is an excellent opportunity for someone interested in an academic career.? By working in our lab, you will be exposed to robotics applications related to microtechnology, nanotechnology, biology, and biomedical engineering. Six people have left our lab for careers in academia over the past few years, helped at least somewhat by the experience they gained with us. While a yearly contract is offered, funding for the position will remain for at least five years. Postdoc salaries at ETH are very competitive, and Zurich is a great city to live in. Knowledge of German is useful, but not necessary. Please email your CV and list of references directly to me. The positions will be filled once excellent candidates are found. -Brad Nelson? ??ETH Zurich *********************** Immediate opening for a Ph.D. student at ETH Zurich in the area of micromanipulation of biological organisms My Multi-Scale Robotics Lab in the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich has two immediate Ph.D. openings. The research project the candidate will pursue is related to the manipulation of actively growing individual plant cells and the manipulation of protein fibers. The projects are a collaboration with world class plant biologists and biomaterials scientists in the area of mechanobiology. This is an excellent opportunity for someone interested in academia or a career in industry related to the emerging field of mechanobiology.? By working in our lab, you will be exposed to robotics applications related to microtechnology, nanotechnology, biology, and biomedical engineering. Six people have left our lab for careers in academia over the past few years, helped at least somewhat by the experience they gained with us. A successful startup company related to micromanipulation was also spun out of our group recently by Ph.D. candidates. Ph.D. salaries at ETH are very competitive, and Zurich is a great city to live in. Knowledge of German is useful, but not necessary. Please email your resume and list of references directly to me. The positions will be filled once excellent candidates are found. -Brad Nelson ? ETH Zurich *********************** Prof. Dr. Bradley Nelson Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS) ETH Z?rich Institut f?r Robotik und Intelligente Systeme (IRIS) www.iris.ethz.ch Tannenstrasse 3, CLA H15.2 Tel: +41 44 632 55 29 CH-8092 Z?rich, Switzerland Fax: +41 44 632 10 78 Mob: +41 79 777 61 30 From conference at fira2009.org Tue Feb 24 17:47:48 2009 From: conference at fira2009.org (FIRA2009) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:47:48 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [IREF] Post Request Message-ID: <3dae01c996eb$0ff6e710$020aa8c0@cagency> The first International Robotics Education Forum (IREF) Incheon, Korea, 16-18 August 2009 www.fira2009.org 'Where Theory and Practice Meet' Call for Papers Welcome to IREF It aims at bringing together the international community of researchers and practitioners to discuss the latest advancements and future directions in the exciting area of robotics education. The forum welcomes original, peer reviewed papers and contributions related with robotics education for all ages in different disciplines. Papers presenting innovative educational technologies, approaches and practices with outstanding impacts on learning environments and outcomes of robotics education are most welcome. . Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. IMPORTANT DATES Invited Session Proposal Submission : 1 March 2009 Conference / Invited Paper Submission : 1 March 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance : 30 April 2009 Final Manuscript Submission : 30 May 2009 TOPICS OF INTEREST We look forward to receive your paper submission in the areas including, but not limited to: Robotic platforms and user interfaces (including software and hardware) for education Intelligent robot control and artificial intelligence in education Design philosophies and methodologies for robotics education New robotics curricula and projects, from the kindergarten to the university level Pedagogcal aspects in organization of robot competitions Human information processing and cognitive models associated with robotics experimentation Learning by robot design and operation Teaching and guidance methods in robotics education Assessment and evaluation in robotics education FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Secretariat Seoul 121-040, KOREA Phone: +82 2 717 3280 Fax: +82 2 706 4879 Email: conference at fira2009.org Website: www.fira2009.org From conference at fira2009.org Tue Feb 24 17:51:32 2009 From: conference at fira2009.org (FIRA2009) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:51:32 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ICSR] Post Request Message-ID: <3dba01c996eb$9588eef0$020aa8c0@cagency> International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) Incheon, Korea, 16-18 August 2009 www.fira2009.org 'Where Theory and Practice Meet' Call for Papers Welcome to ICSR Social Robotics is the study of robots that are able to interact and communicate among themselves, with humans, and with the environment, within the social and cultural structure attached to their roles. The very nature of social robotics demands expertise from diverse disciplines. The conference aims to bring together the international community of researchers and practitioners to share their forefront research and the latest advancements in social robotics, as well as interactions with human beings and integration into our society. Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. Selected papers will be invited for publication as a Special Issue in the International Journal of Social Robotics. IMPORTANT DATES Invited Session Proposal Submission : 7 March 2009 Conference / Invited Paper Submission : 7 March 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance : 30 April 2009 Final Manuscript Submission : 30 May 2009 TOPICS OF INTEREST Affective and cognitive sciences for socially interactive robots Context awareness, expectation and intention understanding Design philosophies and socially appealing design methodologies Biomechatronics, neuro-robotics, and biomedical robotics Human factors and ergonomics in human-robot interactions Intelligent control and artificial intelligence for social robotics Knowledge representation, information acquisition, and decision making Learning, adaptation and evolution of intelligence Interaction and collaboration between robots, humans and environments Multimodal sensor fusion and communication Robot-ethics in human society; Interactive robotic arts Social acceptance and impact in the society Compliance, safety and compatibility in the design of social robots ''living'' with humans Software architecture and development tools Human-robot interaction and robot-robot interaction Models of human and animal social behavior as applied to robots Applications in education, entertainment and gaming Applications in health care and aged care FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Secretariat Seoul 121-040, KOREA Phone: +82 2 717 3280 Fax: +82 2 706 4879 Email: conference at fira2009.org Website: www.fira2009.org From conference at fira2009.org Tue Feb 24 17:52:29 2009 From: conference at fira2009.org (FIRA2009) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:52:29 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ICER] Post Request Message-ID: <3dc401c996eb$b7958440$020aa8c0@cagency> International Conference on Entertainment Robotics (ICER) Incheon, Korea, 16-18 August 2009 www.fira2009.org 'Where Theory and Practice Meet' Call for Papers Welcome to ICER It aims to bring together the international community of researchers and practitioners to discuss and review the latest advancements and future directions in the area of entertainment robotics - thereby including all scientific activities in the fields of MiroSot, SimuroSot and RoboSot or similar systems. . Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. IMPORTANT DATES Invited Session Proposal Submission : 7 March 2009 Conference / Invited Paper Submission : 7 March 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance : 30 April 2009 Final Manuscript Submission : 30 May 2009 TOPICS OF INTEREST We look forward to receive your paper submission in the areas including, but not limited to: Dynamic modeling for robot and entertainment system Intelligent control Artificial intelligence for entertainment robotics Adaptive control systems for mobile robots Mechatronics and embedded systems for robotics Machine vision Multimodal sensor fusion and machine vision Map building, path planning and navigation Machine learning, reasoning, decision making and autonomy Multi agent systems Robot entertainment systems Interaction and collaboration between robots, humans and environments System integration and application in entertainment robotics Soccer game strategy Robot soccer systems like mirosot, simurosot, robosot or similar categories Intelligent, CI-based software solutions (FL, GA, NN,etc.) Hardware architectures and development tools FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Secretariat Seoul 121-040, KOREA Phone: +82 2 717 3280 Fax: +82 2 706 4879 Email: conference at fira2009.org Website: www.fira2009.org From conference at fira2009.org Tue Feb 24 17:53:33 2009 From: conference at fira2009.org (FIRA2009) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:53:33 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [ICAHRR] Post Request Message-ID: <3dd001c996eb$ddcbc610$020aa8c0@cagency> International Conference on Advanced Humonoid Robotics Research (ICAHRR) Incheon, Korea, 16-18 August 2009 www.fira2009.org 'Where Theory and Practice Meet' Call for Papers Welcome to ICAHRR The goal of this conference is to bring together researchers from all areas of humanoid robotics to explore new frontiers for humanoid robots, a very active and important research area within robotics. To date most work in this area has focused on the generation of basic walking gaits for flat terrains, but recent advances have led to novel research opportunities and directions. While walking is obviously a core competency for a humanoid robots, and a skill on which more challenging behaviours are based, it is still a simple task when compared to the full range of motions that a human can easily generate and control. To develop humanoid robots that can have a significant impact on our society, such as robotic nurses or firemen, a humanoid robot must have numerous skills. Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. IMPORTANT DATES Invited Session Proposal Submission: 7 March 2009 Conference / Invited Paper Submission: 7 March 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance : 30 April 2009 Final Manuscript Submission : 30 May 2009 TOPICS OF INTEREST We look forward to receive your paper submission in the areas including, but not limited to: Adaptive and Intelligent Control Trajectory Planning Walking Gait Generation Complex Motion Planning Human-Robot Interaction Simulation of Humanoid Robots Sensing and Perception of Unstructured Environments Computer Vision for Humanoid Robots Multi-Robot Coordination and Communication Machine Learning Applications for Humanoid Robots in Society Societal Issues related to Humanoid Robots FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Secretariat Seoul 121-040, KOREA Phone: +82 2 717 3280 Fax: +82 2 706 4879 Email: conference at fira2009.org Website: www.fira2009.org From conference at fira2009.org Tue Feb 24 17:54:30 2009 From: conference at fira2009.org (FIRA2009) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:54:30 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [CIRAS] Post Request Message-ID: <3dda01c996eb$ff744260$020aa8c0@cagency> International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems (CIRAS) Incheon, Korea, 16-18 August 2009 www.fira2009.org 'Where Theory and Practice Meet' Call for Papers Welcome to CIRAS CIRAS aims to bring together the international community of researchers and practitioners to discuss and review the latest advancements and future directions in the areas of computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems. Papers describing new discoveries and improvements, as well as novel applications on the latest fundamental advances in the core technologies that from the backbone of intelligent control, real time control, fuzzy logic systems, neuro-computing, DNA computing, neural networks (NN), humanoids, cooperative robotics, autonomous systems, embedded systems, and studies on genetic algorithm, hybrid CI algorithms and evolutionary computation are most welcome. . Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. IMPORTANT DATES Invited Session Proposal Submission : 1 March 2009 Conference / Invited Paper Submission : 1 March 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance : 30 April 2009 Final Manuscript Submission : 30 May 2009 TOPICS OF INTEREST We look forward to receive your paper submission in the areas including, but not limited to: Intelligent Control and Real Time Control Autonomous Systems, Survivability, Multi-Agent Systems Neuro-computing, DNA Computing and Life Science Fuzzy Systems, Neural-Fuzzy Systems, and Neural Networks (NN) Distributed Systems, Embedded systems, Power Systems, and Evolutionary Systems Educational Technology, Humanoids, Rough Sets, and Evolvable Hardware Interaction and collaboration between robots, Robot-ethics in human society Systems Design Automation, Multimodal Sensor Fusion, Data Mining, and Evolutionary Logistics Cooperative Robotics, Evolutionary Robotics and Robot Soccer Systems Hybrid CI Algorithms, Genetic Algorithm, and Multi-objective Evolutionary Algorithm Evolutionary Computation (EC), Distributed and Real Time Evolutionary Computation FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Secretariat Seoul 121-040, KOREA Phone: +82 2 717 3280 Fax: +82 2 706 4879 Email: conference at fira2009.org Website: www.fira2009.org From conference at fira2009.org Tue Feb 24 18:00:40 2009 From: conference at fira2009.org (FIRA2009) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:00:40 +0900 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [AMiRE] Post Request Message-ID: <3f3101c996ec$dc61e060$020aa8c0@cagency> 5th International Symposium on Autonomous Minirobots for Research and Edutainment (AMiRE) Incheon, Korea, 16-18 August 2009 www.fira2009.org "Where Theory and Practice Meet" Call for Papers Welcome to the 5th AMiRE The AMiRE series of conferences grew out of the recognition that small and inexpensive entertainment and educational robots have overtaken industrial robots as the main driving force for advancing autonomous robot technology, reminiscent of how desktop computers, and now gaming computers, replaced the big mainframe computers as the drivers for the advancement of computer technology. Correspondingly research is gaining a broader base by moving from well resourced laboratories into small university laboratories. Primary and secondary school students are participating in robot competitions in increasing numbers, indicating the high educational and entertainment value of low cost autonomous mobile robots. Conference proceedings will be published by Springer-Verlag. IMPORTANT DATES Invited Session Proposal Submission : 1 March 2009 Conference / Invited Paper Submission : 1 March 2009 Notification of Paper Acceptance : 30 April 2009 Final Manuscript Submission : 30 May 2009 TOPICS OF INTEREST We invite contributions in the above context covering one or more of the following and other relevant topics: Behavior-based robotics Robot control Bio-inspired robots Robot intelligence Collective behaviour Robot interfaces Computing architectures Robot kinematics Entertainment robots Robot navigation Evolutionary robotics Robot programming Human interaction Robot safety Minirobot construction Robot vision Motion planning Sensor fusion Multi-robot systems Sensor systems Real time learning Simulation and modelling Robot applications Task planning Robot communication Telerobotics FIRA RoboWorld Congress 2009 Secretariat Seoul 121-040, KOREA Phone: +82 2 717 3280 Fax: +82 2 706 4879 Email: conference at fira2009.org Website: www.fira2009.org From bushsf at research.ge.com Wed Feb 25 15:09:43 2009 From: bushsf at research.ge.com (Bush, Stephen F (GE, Research)) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:09:43 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] CFP: Workshop on Nano, Molecular, and Quantum Communications Message-ID: <328DC56CE839BA49BC31BEE66564C1EF06DB7B82@CINMLVEM12.e2k.ad.ge.com> ************************************************************************************************** Workshop on Nano, Molecular, and Quantum Communications (NanoCom 2009) (in conjunction with ICCCN 2009, August 2 - 6, 2009, San Francisco, CA, USA) http://cms.comsoc.org/eprise/main/SiteGen/Nano/Content/Home/NanoCom_09.html *************************************************************************************************** Nanotechnology is fundamentally changing the field of networking in medicine, computing, and sensing. Interesting applications of nano-networking include devices that enable delivery of targeted drugs directly into cancerous tumors or the use of nano robots to conduct inspection in harsh environments. The small size of micro and nanoscale devices imposes constraints on communication, information processing, and propulsion. As the fields of nanotechnology, molecular biology, and quantum computing come together, it has created a rich avenue of interdisciplinary research that will shape the future of nano and molecular information networks. This workshop aims to bring together researchers from the disciplines of information theory, biology, nano-engineering, and computer science to address the communication and information processing issues in nano and molecular networks. This workshop welcomes anyone including researchers, practitioners, and students. The areas of interests include, but are not limited to, the following areas: ** Molecular Communication ** Biological implementation of communications, Molecular Motors, Microtubules, Calcium Signaling, etc... ** Quantum Communication Networks ** Hybrid classical quantum communication networks, repeaters, teleportation, entanglement swapping, nanoscale photon detectors, quantum dot networks, networks and quantum robotics, etc... ** Novel Information and Graph Theory Aspects of Nano-Networks ** Network architectures and topologies, Statistical mechanics approach to nano-communications, Routing/addressing issues in nano-networks, Nano-coding, Applications of complex network theory, Self-organization in nano-scale systems, Modeling of Nano/Bio Communication Channels. ** Applications for Nano-Networks ** Wireless nanoscale transmitters and receivers, nano-sensors and actuators, nanorobotics, medical and in-vivo imaging and sensing, lab on a chip, swarm micro and nano-inspection, embedding sensing, etc... ** Modeling, Simulation, Standards and Architectural Aspects of Nano-Networks ** Physical characterization/modeling of nano-scale interconnects and devices, Fault-tolerant and reliability of nano-devices, Self-healing properties of nano-networks, CAD flows for NoCs and MP-SoC platforms, NoC performance and trade-off analysis, Energy efficiency, Bio-inspired aspects. ** Device Physics and Interconnects ** Nano-technologies and devices for on-chip interconnects (CNTs, graphene nano-ribbons, semic., metallic and DNA-templated nanowires), Molecular, optical and wireless interconnects, Interconnects for non-charge-based devices, emerging 3D-interconnect technologies. ** Nano-Robotics ** Communication systems and networking protocols for sub-inch robotic systems, including low-bandwidth coordination schemes for nano-robot teams and range and bearing devices for inter-robot relative positioning. ** Bio-nano Applications ** Bio-Micro/Nanoelectronics, Molecular scale chemical and biosensors, Bio-MEMS technology, Data and power management, Nano-scale and molecular communications and information processing, Information theory analysis of biological communications, Molecular Computation using molecular cells, Chemical computing. Note that: * The proceedings of the workshop will be included in the IEEExplore digital library and indexed by the EI. * One registration of ICCCN'08 covers up to three papers (including both main conference and workshops). Please refer to ICCCN'08 registration policy for detail. Submission Guidelines Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished papers limited to 6 pages. Please see the Author Information page for submission guidelines in the ICCCN 2009 website. Important Dates Paper submission due................10 Mar 2009 Author notification.......................1 May 2009 Camera-ready due.....................15 May 2009 Author registration.....................15 May 2009 Organizing Committee General Chair * Stephen F Bush, GE Global Research, USA Program Committee Chair * Sanjay Goel, University of Albany, USA Technical Program Committee * Sasitharan Balasubramaniam, TSSG, Ireland * Jian-Qin Liu, NiCT, KARC, Japan * Maggie Cheng, Missouri S&T, USA * Nikolaus Correll, MIT * Andrew Eckford, York University, UK * Darren Brock, Lockheed Martin Nanosystems, USA * James Lyke, USAF * Paul Sotiriadis, Johns Hopkins, USA * Murat Yuksel,University of Nevada, USA * Aristides A. G. Requicha, USC, USA * Guillermo Rueda, Intel Corporation, USA * Alhussein Abouzeid, RPI, USA * Kota Murali, IBM, India * Satoshi Hiyama, NTT DOCOMO, Japan * Feng Cheng, University of Potsdam, Germany * John Barker, University of Glasgow, Scotland * Harish Sethu, Drexel, USA * Michael Shur, RPI, USA * Kevin Mills, NIST, USA * Jir? Wiedermann, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic * Ian Akyildiz, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA * Jianfeng Wang, Philips Research, North America Contact Us You are welcome to contact Stephen F Bush (bushsf at research.ge.com) for with any questions regarding the workshop or the IEEE Emerging Technologies Committee on Nano-Scale, Molecular, and Quantum Networking. From asada at MIT.EDU Wed Feb 25 20:19:10 2009 From: asada at MIT.EDU (Harry H. Asada) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:19:10 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] ICRA 2009 Workshop, "Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems" Message-ID: <49A6183E.7060205@mit.edu> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IEEE ICRA 2009 Workshop *Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems* *May 12, 2009* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are invited to participate in this full-day workshop, which will be held during the 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Kobe, Japan, on May 12, 2009 . Organizer: H. Harry Asada Massachusetts Institute of Technology asada at mit.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Workshop Web Site: http://web.mit.edu/asada/www/icra2009/icra_stochasticWS.html *Speakers:* Vijay Kumar University of Pennsylvania Yoshihiko Nakamura University of Tokyo Daniela Rus M.I.T. Metin Sitti Carnegie Mellon Univ. Auke Ijspeert Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne Franz Hover M.I.T. George Pappas University of Pennsylvania H. Harry Asada M.I.T. *Abstract:* The workshop, ?Stochasticity in Robotics and Biological Systems?, is a unique workshop; while addressing diverse topics of robotics we focus on an underpinning discipline and theory across many branches of robotics. Stochasticity has been a central issue in diverse robotics problems; Modeling of uncertain environment, estimation of state and parameters from noisy data, and decision making based on partial or incomplete information are all critical issues in SLAM, swarm robots, task planning, machine learning, neuro-robotics, and human intension understanding. Stochasticity is also a crucial aspect in biological systems where the multitude of cells and molecules interact stochastically. Yet, collective behaviors of those agents are well regulated and even robust and versatile. Recent progress in systems biology has revealed that the stochastic nature of cell behaviors and random molecular dynamics are the key to the understanding of their collective behaviors and regulatory mechanisms. Researchers of swarm robotics and others are learning from biological systems new stochastic regulatory mechanisms and protocols. Thus stochasticity is heavily involved in diverse fields of robotics and biological systems. The objective of this workshop is to bring together leaders in these isolated research areas, address fundamental issues across the diverse topics, and establish a scientific and disciplinary foundation of robotics. We think that considering fundamental issues beyond specific problems in hand is an important exercise, which will facilitate interdisciplinary studies and will lead to discoveries and breakthroughs for the future. *Motivation and Objectives:* Stochasticity has been playing a central role in many branches of robotics research. Not only basic signal processing, communication, filtering, and control, but also advanced localization, identification, and planning as well as learning and optimization are all heavily involved in stochasticity. Understanding of the stochastic nature of robotic systems and its strategic use are integral part in developing effective systems. The robotics community has been exploring advanced use of stochasticity for system architecture, algorithm development, and communication and control design. Stochasticity is one of the key disciplines that underpin robotics. Biological systems are essentially noisy systems, built upon thermodynamic random processes. Yet, a biological system is a highly regulated system that is robust and sustainable as well as flexible and adaptable. Although individual cell behaviors are stochastic, once assembled, populations of the cells exhibit a particular morphological structure and develop high-level functionality. There must be effective architecture and regulatory mechanisms exploiting stochasticity that today?s engineered systems have not yet utilized. It will be an exciting scientific adventure as well as an ambitious engineering challenge to explore a biological approach to treating and utilizing stochasticity and apply it to robotics and general engineered systems. The objectives of this workshop are to bring together researchers from diverse fields of robotics and biological systems, display the state of the art, explore emerging new theory and methodologies, and chart new directions of robotics. Stochasticity can be used effectively for better estimating, exploring, and optimizing the system as well as for strategically organizing and constructing robotic systems. In traditional engineered systems, randomness has been treated as an unwanted property that should be filtered out. In contrast, the goal of emerging new directions is to seek ways of exploiting and utilizing stochasticity, as observed in biological systems. The overarching aim of this workshop is to put in perspective the diverse research activities in the broad cross-disciplinary areas of robotics, cell biology, neuroscience, and control, and explore new methodologies and applications, which will be enabled by addressing stochasticity from a broad system viewpoint. *List of Topics:* Specific topics of invited talks will include: - SLAM and integrated model building, data acquisition, and decision processes - Complex system identification, including human behavior and intension estimation - Swarm robot control and emergent behaviors of multi-robot systems - Machine learning, stochastic approximation, and stochastic planning and optimization - Neural system modeling, signal processing, and inference. - Emergent behaviors of cell populations and systems biology - Bacteria behavior modeling and control - Self-assembly and chemical kinetics in micro/nano systems * * From tpadir at WPI.EDU Thu Feb 26 09:36:17 2009 From: tpadir at WPI.EDU (Taskin Padir) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:36:17 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Call for Papers: 2009 IEEE TePRA Message-ID: <49A6D311.7070101@wpi.edu> IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) November 9-10, 2009 Greater Boston Area, Massachusetts, USA www.ieeerobot-tepra.org CALL FOR PAPERS The 2nd Annual IEEE International Conference on Technologies for Practical Robot Applications (TePRA) will be held in Woburn, Massachusetts, USA from November 9-10, 2009. TePRA is aimed at catalyzing the development of enabling technologies and encouraging their adoption by robot designers. With an emphasis on practical applications and industrial participation, TePRA provides researchers, innovators, entrepreneurs and robotics professionals a well-balanced platform between an academic conference and an exhibition while maintaining a serious review process. The conference theme this year will be new technologies in robotics and automation and their practical applications. While papers are solicited in all related areas of robotics and automation, the conference tracks include: Robot Applications -Military -Medical -Consumer -Industrial -Service Robot Technologies -Sensing -Actuation -Computation -Power -Communication Prospective authors are invited to submit an extended abstract of their proposed contributions electronically in PDF or MS Word format. Detailed instructions for abstract submission can be found on the conference website. Sponsorship, exhibit and demonstration opportunities are available. Please see the conference website for further details. www.ieeerobot-tepra.org IMPORTANT DATES May 15, 2009: Submission of abstracts June 15, 2009: Notification of acceptance September 1, 2009: Submission of final contributions Email: info at ieeerobot-tepra.org Website: www.ieeerobot-tepra.org -- Taskin Padir, Ph.D. Robotics Engineering Worcester Polytechnic Institute ph. 508-831-6427 From macl at isr.ist.utl.pt Fri Feb 27 01:52:30 2009 From: macl at isr.ist.utl.pt (macl at isr.ist.utl.pt) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:52:30 +0100 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] RLSS09: Robot Learning Summer School Message-ID: <20090227105230.54981ryis34mk7a8@webmail.isr.ist.utl.pt> ________________________ Call for Participation ______________________________________________________ RLSS09: Robot Learning Summer School Dates: Mon 20 to Fri 24 July, 2009 Venue: Instituto Superior T?cnico, Lisboa, Portugal http://vislab.isr.ist.utl.pt/RLSS09/ APPLICATION DEADLINE: 21 April 2009 Overview During the last years learning robots have increasingly received more attention by the robotics community. There is an increasing interest in machine learning and statistics within the robotics community. At the same time, there has been a growth in the learning community in using robots as motivating applications for new algorithms and formalisms. Considerable evidence of this exists in the use of learning in high-profile competitions such as RoboCup and the DARPA Challenges, and the growing number of research programs funded by governments around the world. Additionally, the volume of research is increasing, as shown by the number of learning papers accepted to IROS and ICRA, and the corresponding number of learning sessions. This school is mainly designed for PhD students in learning robots who want to acquire a good understanding of current research and open challenges. At the same time, it may serve as a good introduction to those people with a different background who want to introduce themselves to this area. The school will allow the participants to get in touch with international experts in this field. More long term results will include exchange of students, joint publications and potential joint projects. Venue The summer school will be held at the Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST) in Lisbon, Portugal. IST has a long history in robotics research, machine learning and computer vision and is currently involved in several research projects in these areas. This Summer School is organized by Institute for Systems and Robotics in cooperation with the IEEE Technical Committee in Learning Robots and support from Funda??o para a Ci?ncia e Tecnologia. Topics The topics include: * Reinforcement learning in robots, * Planning with uncertainty, * Mobile robot learning and mapping * Machine learning for regression and classification * Relational learning, * Cognitive robots: learning robots as a link to neuroscience. See the webpage for further details: http://vislab.isr.ist.utl.pt/RLSS09/ Program committee * Jan Peters, Max Planck Institute * Nick Roy, MIT * Russ Tedrake, MIT * Jun Morimoto, ATR * Jose Santos-Victor, IST * Manuel Lopes, IST * Luis Montesano, IST Organizers * Manuel Lopes, IST * Luis Montesano, IST APPLICATION The school will be open to about 40 qualified, motivated and pre- selected candidates. The school is open to PhD. students, post-docs and researchers (both academic and industrial). To apply, PhD students should submit: a CV, a one page abstract describing their thesis topic and a poster submission. http://vislab.isr.ist.utl.pt/RLSS09/registration.html School fees are: 300 euros for Phd students and 400 euros for others. Depending on sponsoring a limited number of travel grants will be available, check the web site. The expected daily lodging cost are: 40 euros for a double room in a standard hotel or about 80 euros single in a 4 star hotel. The fee include, all courses, handling material, coffee breaks, welcome cocktail, WiFi Internet Connection, social events. The application at RLSS09 should be submitted before 21 April 2009. Applicants will receive notification of acceptance by 30 April 2009. Manuel Lopes -- ISR/IST - Torre Norte, 7? - Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa. Portugal Tel. (+351)218418299, Fax. (+351)218418291, Web: www.isr.ist.utl.pt/~macl From prybski at cs.cmu.edu Sat Feb 28 19:54:19 2009 From: prybski at cs.cmu.edu (Paul E. Rybski) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:54:19 -0500 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] The IJCAI-09 workshop on "Competitions in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics" Message-ID: <49AA06EB.2070903@cs.cmu.edu> ********************************************************************** *** The IJCAI-09 workshop on *** *** Competitions in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics *** ********************************************************************** July 12, 2009 Held in conjunction with IJCAI 2009 Pasadena, California, USA http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~helmert/events/ijcai09-ws/ ********************************************************************** Call for Papers ********************************************************************** Workshop Description: Many subfields of artificial intelligence and robotics regularly host competitions which impact research communities in many ways, including a scientific, engineering and community dimension. Scientifically, they offer a way to evaluate the state of the art of a subfield by providing a common benchmark on which different approaches to a problem can be compared. From the engineering perspective, they help technology in an area to mature by requiring development of systems that work robustly on unseen problems or by promoting the development of tools or reusable system components for the problem addressed by the competition. From the community perspective, they inspire discussion and attract publicity for a field and help enroll young researchers in a research community. There are many subfields of artificial intelligence and robotics in which competitions have had a clear influence on the research landscape in past years: * In robotics, the RoboCup competitions (originally on robotic soccer, recently also in search and rescue scenarios) have attracted huge publicity and inspired a large number of researchers to work on its challenges. RoboCup has effectively evolved into an own subfield where research activity is to a large extent guided by the requirements defined by the competition. More recently, the DARPA Grand Challenge has spurned a flurry of research activity on autonomous navigation in large outdoor areas, leading to impressive improvements of the state of the art. * In satisfiability testing, the SAT competitions have provided a continuous challenge for solvers that has inspired significant algorithmic innovations for SAT solvers as well as huge improvements in implementation quality (e.g., low-level performance). * In classical planning, the International Planning Competitions have focused the research community on a common representation language, PDDL, and a set of common benchmarks which have greatly helped comparing different classical planning systems to each other. They have also led to a huge increase in scalability of planning systems on a wide range of problem domains. But competitions haven't had the same degree of impact in all subfields of artificial intelligence or robotics. In model-based diagnosis for instance the community has just started converging on a generally accepted way of evaluating and comparing different approaches or technologies. Some researchers argue that the missing confidence in the methods used to evaluate approaches has been an obstacle to progress in this area. Despite the potential advantages resulting from competitions, they have been a source of controversy in many subfields of artificial intelligence. Whereas supporters believe that competitions accelerate research, opponents argue that they often focus research on synthetic problems or preclude research directions that are less aligned with current competitions. We believe that the methods used to evaluate and compare research have strong implications on future research directions and therefore need to be well designed. Once communities have accepted regular competitions, it can be difficult to create new directions in research. Another important aspect is the question of how competition should evolve as research evolves. Therefore a careful design as well as the actively guided evolution of competitions is essential for its success in the field as well as for the success of the field. Submission Guidelines: Participants should submit a paper (maximum 8 pages, significantly shorter submissions are also welcome). We encourage to submit papers that describe competitions and their impact on the field as well as papers from either the perspective of competition organizers or participants. Accepted papers will be presented during the workshop. Authors are requested to prepare their papers by following the IJCAI instructions found at: http://www.ijcai-09.org/fcfp.html. All submissions are conducted via the CAIR 2009 EasyChair website: http://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cair09. Submissions should include the name(s), affiliations, and email addresses of all authors in the body of the email. The deadline for receipt of submissions is April 1, 2009 at 11:59 PST. For questions about the submission process, contact the workshop co-chairs. Important Dates: * Paper Submission: April 1, 2009 * Notifications of Acceptance/Rejection: April 17, 2009 * Camera-Ready Papers: May 8, 2009 * Announcement of the Workshop Program: May 22, 2009 * Workshop Date: July 12, 2009 Contact (Workshop Co-Chairs): Malte Helmert University of Freiburg Institut f?r Informatik http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~helmert/ helmert at informatik.uni-freiburg.de Johan de Kleer PARC Embedded Reasoning Area http://www2.parc.com/spl/members/dekleer/ dekleer at parc.com Lukas Kuhn PARC Embedded Reasoning Area http://www2.parc.com/isl/members/lkuhn/ lukas.kuhn at parc.com Paul Rybski Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~prybski/ prybski+ijcai at cs.cmu.edu From akin at boun.edu.tr Sat Feb 28 20:38:30 2009 From: akin at boun.edu.tr (H. Levent Akin) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 06:38:30 +0200 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] [CFP] Deadline extension: CLAWAR 2009 Message-ID: <1235882310.49aa11467acf0@webmail.boun.edu.tr> **Essential information: CLAWAR 2009 conference has announced a postponement of the deadline for extended abstracts from March 1st to ***March 15th*** ### Our apologies in case of cross-postings ### CLAWAR'2009 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines 09 – 11 September, 2009, Istanbul, Turkey http://www.clawar2009.org/ Call for Papers -------------------------------- Robotics is an exciting field in engineering and natural sciences. Robotics has already made important widespread contributions and impact in industrial robots for tasks such as assembly, welding, painting, and material handling. In parallel, we have also witnessed the emergence of special service robots which perform valuable jobs, in new environments such as search and rescue, surveillance, exploration and security missions as well as provide assistance to a variety of users. The emergence of mobile machines, such as the climbing and walking robots, for these missions in un-structured environments, has significantly broadened challenges that must be considered by robotics research. The purpose of the 12th International Conference on Climbing and Walking Robots and the Support Technologies for Mobile Machines (CLAWAR'2009) is to provide a venue where researchers, scientists, engineers and practitioners throughout the world can come together to present and discuss the latest achievements, future challenges and exciting applications for mobile service machines in general, and climbing and walking robots in particular. In order to benefit all participants, and also to maximize the interaction, the technical program of this conference is intentionally tailored to having relatively few parallel tracks. Each track will accommodate peer-reviewed articles, comprising regular and special sessions, dealing with theoretical, experimental and application works. Moreover, the conference will include several keynote lectures and poster sessions. Topics of Interest (non-exhaustive list): ---------------------------------------- RESEARCH • Autonomous robots • Tele-operated robots • Biologically-inspired systems and solutions • Innovative design of CLAWAR • Modelling and simulation of CLAWAR • Planning and control • Co-operative robot systems • Intelligence and learning for CLAWAR • HMI • Innovative actuators and power supplies • Innovative sensors and sensor networks • Positioning & localization • Perception and sensor fusion • Guidance and navigation • Manipulation and gripping • Legged locomotion • Wheeled locomotion • Hybrid locomotion • Micro and nano robots • Tele-presence and virtual reality • Service robot standards and standardization • SME robotics APPLICATION • Planetary exploration • Security • Emergence rescue operations • Surveillance • Reconnaissance • Education • Biomedical robots • Rehabilitation and function restoration • Petrochemical applications • Inspection • Construction • Entertainment • Helping the elderly and the disabled • Manufacturing • Performing and creative arts robots • Personal robots • Robots for domestic environments • Service robots • Space robots • Assistive robots • Sport and exercise robots Important Dates: ---------------- **March 15, 2009 Submission of Extended Abstracts <- Deadline extended April 15, 2009 Notification of Acceptance May 15, 2009 Submission of Final (accepted) Papers June 1, 2009 Early Bird Registration June 1, 2009 Author Registration July 1, 2009 Preliminary Program September 9-11, 2009 Conference -- =================================================================== H.Levent Akin [] To acquire knowledge and Department of Computer Engineering [] communicate it to others Bogazici University [] has been the ambition, 34342 Bebek-Istanbul [] pleasure, and business of TURKEY [] my life. [] -William Harvey [] Phone: +90 (212) 359 6769 [] Fax: +90 (212) 287 2461 [] E-Mail:akin at boun.edu.tr [] URL:http://www.cmpe.boun.edu.tr/~akin [] From Jason.Gu at Dal.Ca Sat Feb 28 09:21:48 2009 From: Jason.Gu at Dal.Ca (Jason Gu) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:21:48 -0400 Subject: [robotics-worldwide] IEEE ICAL 2009 Submission Deadline Extended to April 1, 2009 Message-ID: <20090228132148.czgq7o2v2a1cc8kg@my5.dal.ca> Dear Colleague, Upon many requests, the paper submission deadline of The 2009 IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics (IEEE ICAL 2009) is extended to: April 1, 2009. All full paper PDF files must be submitted on-line at the ICAL conference website at: http://www.ieee-ical.org or http://www.ieee-ical.info. The IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics (IEEE ICAL) is the flagship conference of IEEE in automation and logistics. The 2009 annual event, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Automation and Logistics (IEEE ICAL 2009), will take place from August 5 to 7, 2009 in the historical city of Shenyang, China. The theme of IEEE ICAL 2009 is 'Advanced Automation and Logistics in the Information Age', reflecting the fast growing interests in research, development and applications in the dynamic and exciting areas of advanced intelligent automation and logistics. Shenyang, the largest city in Northeast China, is the political, economic, and cultural center of Liaoning Province. It is an important industrial base and a celebrated old city with more than 2,000 years of history. It is the birthplace of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). IEEE ICAL 2009 promises to be a great event, bringing together a group of electrical, mechanical, industrial, systems, logistics, and computer engineers, and offering a rich technical program emphasizing effective use of the synergy in the areas of automation and logistics. IEEE ICAL 2009 conference invites high quality original research papers in all areas of automation, logistics, their related areas and applications. Detailed information about the conference is available at the conference website listed above. The papers will be full-paper peer reviewed and all accepted papers will be EI indexed and published on IEEE Xplore. In fact, all papers published in the Proceedings of the IEEE ICAL 2008 Conference were EI Compendex full-paper indexed in December of 2008, only three months after the conference being held. We would like to invite all the scholars and experts around the world to contribute recent and original research results and to attend the conference to be hosted at the great Chinese city of Shenyang. The conference paper submission has started at the conference website. Proposals for special sessions are welcome. Papers with original work in all aspects of Automation and Logistics are invited. SUBMISSION OF PAPERS: Prospective authors are invited to submit original papers in IEEE double column format with no less than 10p fonts. Please follow the standard IEEE guidelines for preparing papers when preparing your manuscript. More information can be found here: http://www.ieee.org/web/publications/pubservices/confpub/author_faqs.html AUTHORS'S SCHEDULES: Deadline for full paper submission: April 1, 2009 Notification of accepted papers: May 31, 2009 Submission of accepted final papers: June 15, 2009 We look forward to meeting you in Shenyang, China in August, 2009. Kindest regards, Tianyou Chai, General Co-Chair T.-J. Tarn, General Co-Chair Toshio Fukuda, Program Co-Chair Huaguang Zhang, Program Co-Chair From jeedward at yahoo.com Fri Feb 27 08:17:37 2009 From: jeedward at yahoo.com (John Edward) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 08:17:37 -0800 (PST) Subject: [robotics-worldwide] Paper submission deadline just less than a week: MULTICONF-09 Message-ID: <414288.68422.qm@web45912.mail.sp1.yahoo.com> Paper submission deadline just less than a week: MULTICONF-09 ? The deadline for draft paper submission at the 2009 Multi Conference in Computer Science, Information Technology and Control systems and Computational Science and Computer Engineering (MULTICONF-09) (website: http://www.PromoteResearch.org) is just less than a week from now. ? The conference will be held during July 13-16 2009 in Orlando, FL, USA. We invite draft paper submissions. The event consists of the following conferences: ????????? International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition (AIPR-09) ????????? International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Control Systems (ARCS-09) ????????? International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics and Chemoinformatics (BCBGC-09) ????????? International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems and Web Technologies (EISWT-09) ????????? International Conference on High Performance Computing, Networking and Communication Systems (HPCNCS-09) ????????? International Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ISP-09) ????????? International Conference on Recent Advances in Information Technology and Applications (RAITA-09) ????????? International Conference on Software Engineering Theory and Practice (SETP-09) ????????? International Conference on Theory and Applications of Computational Science (TACS-09) ????????? International Conference on Theoretical and Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science (TMFCS-09) ? The website http://www.PromoteResearch.org? contains more details. ? Sincerely John Edward Publicity committee ?